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THE '^EXPOSITOR'S    BTBCET^ 


EDITED  BY  THE  REV. 

W.    ROBERTSON    NICOLL,    M.A.,    LL.D., 

Editor  of  "  The  Expositor:' 


THE     EPISTLE     TO     THE     EPHESIANS. 

BY  THE  REV.   PROFESSOR 

G.     G.     FINDLAY,    B.A., 

Headingley  College,  Leeds. 


NEW    YORK: 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON, 
51    EAST    TENTH    STREET. 


1892. 


X- 


T 


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Edited  by  the    Rev.  W.  ROBERTSON  NICOLL,  M.A.,  LL.D. 
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First  Series,  1887-88. 


Colossians. 

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Genesis. 

By  Prof.  Marcus  Dods,  D.D. 


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.     By  Rev.  A.  Plummer,  D.D. 

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Ephesians. 

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By  Prof.  G.  G.  Findlay,  B.A. 

1  and  2  Thessalonians. 

The  Gospel  of  St.  John. 

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The  Book  of  Job. 

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By  Prof.  Stokes,  D.D.    Vol.  II. 

New  York  :  A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  &  SON,  51  East  Tenth  Street. 

THE 

EPISTLE  TO  THE   EPHESIANS. 


BY  THE  REV.   PROFESSOR 

G.     G.  'FINDLAY,     B.A, 

Headingley  College,  Leeds. 


NEW    YORK: 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON, 

51    EAST    TENTH    STREET. 

1892. 


CONTENTS. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Chapter  i.  i,  2. 

CHAPTER   I. 

THE  WRITER   AND   READERS. 

PAGE 

Contrast  of  Galatians  and  Ephesians — Pauline  qualities  of 
Ephesians  :  intellectual,  historical,  theological,  spiritual, 
ethical — The  Idea  of  the  Church — The  Person  of  Christ 
— Ephesians  and  Colossians — Style  of  Ephesians — 
Circular  Hypothesis — Epistle  from  Laodicea — Designa- 
tion of  the  Readers — Faithful  Brethren  ....       3 

PRAISE   AND  PRAYER. 

Chapter  i.  3-19. 

CHAPTER    II. 
THE  ETERNAL   PURPOSE. 

The  Apostle's  Hymn  of  Praise— Blessed  be  God  '.—Blessing 
spiritual,  heavenly,  Christian — In  the  Beginning  the 
Election  of  Grace— The  World  and  its  Founder- 
Redemption  embedded  in  Creation — God's  prescient 
Choice— Our  Holiness  His  Purpose— Divine  Adoption 
—Who  are  the  Elect  ? 21 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE   BESTOWMENT   OF  GRACE. 

Structure  of  the  Paragraph— Grace  an  Experience— Christ 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

the  Beloved — Forgiveness  and  its  Price — The  Value 
of  Forgiveness — Wisdom  a  Gift  of  Grace — The  Gospel 
as  an  intellectual  Force— God's  Will  the  Goal  of  human 
Thought — Sonship  and  Heritage — The  Fulness  of  the 
Times — The  Christian  Inventory  of  the  Universe — 
Reconciliation  and  Reconstitution — Gathering  in  and 
Gathering  out 34 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   FINAL   REDEMPTION. 

Mutual  Inheritance — Jewish  and  Gentile  Heirs — Uses  of  the 
Seal — The  Stamp  of  Sanctity — Promise  fulfilled  and  to 
be  fulfilled — Hearing  and  Believing — Salvation  by  the 
Truth — Salvation  for  the  Gentiles — Faith  and  the  Holy 
Spirit — The  two  Redemptions — The  encumbered  Pro- 
perty— The  Earnest  of  our  consummate  Life        .         .       50 

CHAPTER  V. 

FOR  THE  EYES  OF  THE  HEART. 

Thanksgiving  for  the  Readers — The  God  of  Christ,  the 
Father  of  Glory — Christian  Enlightenment — Seeing  with 
the  Heart — What  is  our  Hope  ? — God's  Wealth  in  Men 
— The  true  Standard  of  Value — The  Power  of  Christ's 
Resurrection 65 

THE    DOCTRINE. 

Chapter  ii.  20 — iii.   13. 
CHAPTER  VI. 

WHAT   GOD   WROUGHT   IN    THE   CHRIST. 

Prayer  and  Teaching — Historical  Effect  of  Christ's  Resurrec- 
tion— The  Stages  of  His  Exaltation — Christianity  with- 
out Miracles — The  efficient  Cause  of  Christianity — The 
perfect  Resurrection — The  First-begotten  out  of  the 
Dead — The  Risen  One,  the  Holy  One — Resurrection 
and  Ascension — Ascension  to  Rule — Christ  and  the 
Angels — Christ  glorified  God's  Gift  to  the  Church — 
Christ  the  Fulness  of  God       .        .         .         .         .         .81 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

FROM   DEATH   TO   LIFE, 

PAGE 

Raised  with  Christ — Sin  is  Death — Jesus  Christ  in  a  dead 
World — Alive  in  Body,  dead  in  Spirit — Religious  Diffi- 
culties— Antipathy  to  God — The  Power  of  the  Air — 
God's  Anger  against  Sinners — The  Soul's  Awaking — 
Consciousness  of  God — Fellowship  in  Salvation    .        .95 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

SAVED   FOR   AN   END. 

Beginning  and  End  of  God's  Plan — Mercy,  Love,  Kindness, 
Grace  and  Gift — Not  of  Works — Boasting  excluded — 
Evangelical  Assurance — In  the  heavenly  Places — Grace 
a  Task-master — Creation  and  Redemption — The  apos- 
tolic Church  and  the  coming  Times        ....  109 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   FAR   AND   NEAR. 

Wherefore  remember! — Sudden  and  gradual  Conversion — 
The  Gentile  World  :  Godless,  hopeless,  Christless — 
Away  with  the  Atheists  ! — The  double  Pessimism — The 
Uncircumcision — Nigh  in  the  Blood  of  Christ — Reunion 
in  Guilt  and  in  Pardon 120 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE   DOUBLE  RECONCILIATION. 

The  Jewish  War — The  two  Parties  in  the  Church — The 
Jewish  Enmity  typical — The  new  Christian  Humanity 
—The  Church  in  the  first  Century  and  the  nineteenth 
— Hindrances  to  Unity  :  external,  internal — The  Ground 
of  Reconciliation — Enemies  of  God — The  Atonement 
of  the  Cross — Moral  Communism — Personal  Faith — 
The  Fraternization  of  Mankind 131 

CHAPTER   XI. 

god's   TEMPLE  IN   HUMANITY. 

The  Divine  Occupant — The  Service  of  Man  and  of  God — 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

One  Temple  and  many  Buildings — The  Variety  of  the 
apostolic  Church — The  primitive  Catholicism — Church 
and  Dissent — Union  by  Approximation — Our  Lord's 
Prayer  for  Unity — The  apostolic  Basis — The  Builder 
Spirit — The  sure  Foundation  Stone       .        .        .        -143 

CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  SECRET  OF  THE  AGES. 

St  Paul's  Style  of  Composition — Christ  the  Mystery  of  God 
— Christ  in  the  Old  Testament — The  Exploration  of 
Christ — The  Portion  of  the  Gentiles  in  Israel — The 
Organs  of  the  new  Revelation — The  unique  Office  and 
Influence  of  the  Apostle  Paul 155 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

EARTH   TEACHING   HEAVEN. 

Christ  the  Bond  of  Angels  and  Men — Our  Lord  and  theirs — 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  Lord  of  the  Ages — The  Reality 
of  the  Angels — Their  Interest  in  the  Church — The 
Peculiarity  of  the  human  Problem — The  Docility  of  the 
heavenly  Potentates — The  angehc  Standpoint — The 
Grandeur  of  Christianity  inspires  Courage      .        .         .167 

PRAYER    AND  PRAISE. 

Chapter  iii.  14-21. 

CHAPTER    XIV. 
THE  COMPREHENSION   OF   CHRIST. 

Contents  of  St  Paul's  Prayer — The  Father  of  Angels  and 
of  Men — Strength  of  Spirit  and  of  the  Spirit — Christ 
abiding  in  the  Heart — Christ  and  the  Christ — Christ's 
Claim  on  the  Intellect — Neglect  of  Theology — Dimen- 
sions of  God's  Building — Strength  to  grasp  the  Magni- 
tude of  Christianity — The  true  Broad  Churchman  .  183 

CHAPTER    XV. 

KNOWING   THE   UNKNOWABLE. 

Knowledge  in   the   Growth — Paul's  Study  of  the  Love  of 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Christ — Christ's  manifested  Love — God's  Fulness  our 
final  Aim — The  Fulness  more  than  Love — Praise  out- 
soaring  Prayer — God's  Gifts  beyond  our  Requests — The 
Divine  Power  immanent  in  Men — The  Inspirer  of  Prayer 
its  Fulfiller — The  Union  of  the  Church  and  Christ  in 
God's  Praise — The  eternal  Glory 197 


THE    EXHORTATION, 

ON    CHURCH   LIFE. 

Chapter  iv.  1-16. 

CHAPTER    XVI. 
THE    FUNDAMENTAL   UNITIES. 

The  Prisoner  in  the  Lord — The  Foes  of  Church  Peace : 
Lovv-mindedness,  Ambition,  Resentfulness — The  Basis 
of  Unity :  sevenfold,  threefold — One  Body  despite 
Divisions— One  Spirit  makes  one  Body — Unity  of  Life 
and  Hope — One  Lord  in  all  Churches — Baptism  a  Sign 
of  Christ's  Rule,  the  Seal  of  a  corporate  Life — The  one 
God,  and  the  many 213 

CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE   MEASURE  OF   THE  GIFT  OF   CHRIST. 

Unity  in  Diversities — Christ  the  Administrator — The  Ascen- 
sion of  David  and  of  David's  Son — Height  and  Breadth 
— The  Giving  of  Jesus — Christ's  Descent  and  Ascent — 
The  Warfare  of  Christ — The  Spoils  of  His  Victory — 
The  Enlistment  of  His  Prisoners — Apostles  and  Pro- 
phets, Evangelists  and  Pastors — Paul,  Augustine,  Luther, 
Knox,  Wesley — The  Demands  of  the  Future — Individual 
Responsibility 227 

CHAPTER    XVIII. 

THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

The  Aim  of  the  Christian  Ministry — A  perfect  Manhood — 
Sleight  or  Sport  ? — Junctures  of  Supply — Reunion  in  the 
Knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God — The  Stature  of  Christ 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

our  Standard — The  Dangers  of  Childishness — Specula- 
tive Error — Gnosticism  and  Agnosticism — Conditions  of 
Safety — Church  Organization — The  Framework  of  the 
Body  of  Christ — Its  Continuity  of  Tissue        .         .        .  244 

ON    CHRISTIAN   MORALS. 
Chapter  iv.  17 — v.  21. 

CHAPTER    XIX. 

THE  WALK   OF   THE  GENTILES. 

The  old  World  and  the  old  Man — Impotence  of  Gentile 
Reason — Science  and  Pessimism — Loss  of  the  Life  of 
God — Ignorance  the  Mother  of  Indevotion — Induration 
of  Heart — Impudicity  of  Paganism 261 

CHAPTER    XX. 

THE    TWO    HUMAN   TYPES. 

Defective  Views  of  Christ  amongst  Paul's  Readers — The 
historical  Jesus  the  true  Christ — Paul  and  the  Tradition 
of  Jesus — Jesus  the  human  Model — Nero  a  Type  of  the 
Pagan  Order — The  Fraud  of  Sin — The  Growth  and  the 
Birth  of  the  new  Man — Righteousness  and  Holiness      .  275 

CHAPTER    XXI. 

DISCARDED    VICES. 

The  seven  Gentile  Sins — Truthfulness  and  the  Truth — The 
Perils  of  Anger — The  Antidote  to  Theft— Sinfulness  of 
vain  Speech — Malice  and  its  Brood — Imitation  of  the 
Divine  Love  —  Filthiness  and  Jesting  —  The  golden 
Leprosy 290 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

DOCTRINE  AND   ETHICS. 

The  Intrinsic  and  Experimental  in  Morals — Originality  of 
Christian  Ethics — Ethical  Art  and  Science — Four  Prin- 
ciples of   Pauline   Ethics— Personality  and    Morals — 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Ethical  Character  of  Christ's  Forgiveness — Auguste 
Comte  and  the  Gospel — The  moral  Import  of  the  Resur- 
rection—And of  the  Atonement 305 

CHAPTER    XXIII. 

THE  CHILDREN   OF   THE   LIGHT. 

Right  the  Fruit  of  Light — All  Virtue  from  one  Source — Un- 
belief and  Immorality — Christian  Goodness — The  Way 
of  Righteousness — Truth  the  Hall-mark  of  Sanctity — 
Verity  and  Veracity — Specialists  in  Virtue — Reproof  of 
open  and  of  hidden  Sins — Manifestation  and  Trans- 
formation          321 

CHAPTER    XXIV. 
THE   NEW  WINE  OF  THE   SPIRIT. 

Soberness  and  Excitement — The  heedful  Look — Evil  Days 
for  the  Asian  Christians — Wisdom  to  know  God's  Will 
— Wine  and  social  Pleasure — The  Craving  for  Excite- 
ment— Fulness  of  the  Spirit — The  Rise  of  Christian 
Psalmody — The  Music  of  the  Heart — Enthusiasm  and 
Order 336 


ON   FAMILY   LIFE. 
Chapter  v.  22 — vi.  9. 

CHAPTER    XXV. 
CHRISTIAN   MARRIAGE. 

The  Divine  Character  of  Marriage — Religious  Equality  of 
the  Sexes — The  Glory  of  the  Man — Women's  Rights — 
Christ's  undivided  Headship — Masculine  Selfishness — 
Greek  Terms  for  Love — The  Husband  and  the  Priest — 
The  double  Self— Indelibility  of  Wedlock      .        .        .  353 

CHAPTER    XXVI. 
CHRIST  AND   HIS   BRIDE. 

Marriage  and  the  Doctrine  of  the  Church — The  Individual 


CONTENTS. 


and  the  Church— The  Glory  of  the  vicarious  Death- 
Christ  the  Sanctifier  of  His  Church— The  Signification 
of  Baptism— The  Water  and,  the  Word— The  Bride 
made  ready — The  Church  a  Christocracy — Adam's 
Wedding-song — The  Church  inherent  in  Christ      .         .  366 

CHAPTER    XXVII. 

THE   CHRISTIAN   HOUSEHOLD. 

Children  in  the  Church — The  initial  Form  of  Duty — Com- 
mandment and  Promise — Gentleness  of  fatherly  Rule 
— Spoilt  Children — The  Lord's  Nurture — Greek  and 
Roman  Slaves — The  Church  and  the  Slaves — Christ  a 
Pattern  for  Slaves — Servants  of  Society — Care,  Honesty, 
Heartiness  in  Work — The  heavenly  Master's  Reward — 
Responsibility  of  the  earthly  Master        ....  380 


ON    THE   APPROACHING    CONFLICT. 
Chapter  vi.  10-18. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
THE  FOES  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

Henceforth  be  strong ! — The  two  Panoplies — The  Personality 
of  Satan — The  Devil  and  his  Angels — Paul's  Demon- 
ology — The  spiritual  i  Combat — Interior  Temptations — 
Persecution  and  Heresy — The  Region  of  the  Struggle — 
The  Siege  of  the  heavenly  City 397 

CHAPTER    XXIX. 

THE  DIVINE  PANOPLY. 

The  coming  evil  Day — Comparison  with  Revelation  ii.,  iii. — 
The  Girdle  of  Truth— The  Breastplate  of  Righteousness 
—Shoes  of  Gospel  Readiness— The  great  Shield  of 
Faith— Fire-tipped  Darts— The  Helmet  of  Salvation — 
The  Spirit's  Sword— The  Weapon  of  All-prayer    .        .410 


CONTENTS. 


THE    CONCLUSION. 

Chapter  vi.  19-24. 
CHAPTER  XXX. 

REQUEST:   commendation:    BENEDICTION. 

PAGE 

Paul's  Need  of  the  Church's  Prayers— Christ's  Ambassador 
before  the  Emperor — Speaking  the  Word  given— Good 
News  for  the  Asian  Churches — Character  and  Services 
of  Tychicus — Peace  to  the  Brethren — Love  with  Faith — 
Love  toward  Christ  and  Grace  from  God — The  Love 
incorruptible    .         .         . 427 


THE  INTRODUCTION. 

Chapier  i.  I,  2. 


Ov  fiovou    'E^etrou   dWa    o-xeS^"    Trda-qi    rrjs   'Aaias  6    llauXos  oSros 
Treia-as  fxeTeaTrjaeu  iKavbv  dx^ou  (Demetrius  the  Silversmith). 

Acts  xix.  26. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE   WRITER  AND  READERS. 

'  *  Paul,  an  apostle  of  Christ  Jesus  through  the  will  of  God,  to  the 
saints,  who  are  indeed  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus :  Grace  to  you  and  peace 
from  God  our  Father  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  * — Eph.  i.  i,  2: 

IN  passing  from  the  Galatian  to  the  Ephesian  epistle 
we  are  conscious  of  entering  a  different  atmosphere. 
We  leave  the  region  of  controversy  for  that  of  medita- 
tion. From  the  battle-field  we  step  into  the  hush  and 
stillness  of  the  temple.  Verses  3-14  of  this  chapter  con- 
stitute the  most  sustained  and  perfect  act  of  praise  that 
is  found  in  the  apostle's  letters.  It  is  as  though  a  door 
were  suddenly  opened  in  heaven  ;  it  shuts  behind  us,  and 
earthly  tumult  dies  away.  The  contrast  between  these 
two  writings,  following  each  other  in  the  established 
order  of  the  epistles,  is  singular  and  in  some  ways 
extreme.  They  are,  respectively,  the  most  combative 
and  peaceful,  the  most  impassioned  and  unimpassioned, 
the  most  concrete  and  abstract,  the  most  human  and 
divine  amongst  the  great  apostle's  writings. 

Yet  there  is  a  fundamental  resemblance  and  identity 
of  character.  The  two  letters  are  not  the  expression 
of  different  minds,  but  of  different  phases  of  the  same 

*  The  translation  given  in  this  volume  is  based  upon  the  Revised 
Version,  but  deviates  from  it  in  some  particulars.  These  deviations 
will  be  explained  in  the  exposition. 

3 


4  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE\  EPHESIANS. 

mind.  In  the  Paul  of  Galatians  the  Paul  of  Ephesians 
is  latent ;  the  contemplative  thinker,  the  devout  mystic 
behind  the  ardent  missionary  and  the  masterly  debater. 
Those  critics  who  recognize  the  genuine  apostle  only  in 
the  four  previous  epistles  and  reject  v^hatever  does  not 
conform  strictly  to  their  type,  do  not  perceive  how  much 
is  needed  to  make  up  a  man  hke  the  apostle  Paul. 
Without  the  inwardness,  the  brooding  faculty,  the 
power  of  abstract  and  metaphysical  thinking  displayed 
in  the  epistles  of  this  group,  he  could  never  have 
wrought  out  the  system  of  doctrine  contained  in  those 
earlier  writings,  nor  grasped  the  principles  which  he 
there  applies  with  such  vigour  and  effect.  That  so 
many  serious  and  able  scholars  doubt,  or  even  deny, 
St  Paul's  authorship  of  this  epistle  on  internal  grounds 
and  because  of  the  contrast  to  which  we  have  referred, 
is  one  of  those  phenomena  which  in  future  histories  of 
religious  thought  will  be  quoted  as  the  curiosities  of 
a  hypercritical  age.* 

Let  us  observe  some  of  the  Pauline  quaHties  that  are 
stamped  upon  the  face  of  this  document.  There  is,  in 
the  first  place,  the  apostle's  intellectual  note,  what  has 
been  well  called  his  passion  for  the  absolute.  St  Paul's 
was  one  of  those  minds,  so  discomposing  to  superficial 
and  merely  practical  thinkers,  which  cannot  be  content 
with  half-way  conclusions.  For  every  principle  he 
seeks    its    ultimate   basis;    every  line    of  thought   he 

*  The  case  against  authenticity  is  ably  stated  in  Dr.  S.  Davidson's 
Introduction  to  the  N.  T. ;  see  also  Baur's  Patil,  Pfleiderer's  Fazdinism, 
Hilgenfeld's  Einleitung,  Hatch's  article  on  "  Paul "  in  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  The  case  for  the  defence  may  be  found  in  Weiss',  Salmon's, 
Bleek's,  or  Dods'  N.  T.  Introduction — the  last  brief,  but  to  the  point; 
in  Reuss'  History  of  the  N.  T. ;  Milligan's  article  on  "  Ephesians  "  in 
Encycl.  Brit.  ;  Gloag's  Introduction  to  the  Pauline  Epp. ;  Meyer's,  or 
Beet's,  or  Eadie's  Commentary  \  Sabatier's  The  Apostle  Paul. 


i.  I,  2.]  THE   WRITER. 


pushes  to  its  furthest  limits.  His  gospel,  if  he  is  to 
rest  in  it,  must  supply  a  principle  of  unity  that  will 
bind   together  all   the  elements  of  his   mental  world. 

Hence,  in  contesting  the  Jewish  claim  to  religious 
superiority  on  the  ground  of  circumcision  and  the 
Abrahamic  covenant,  St  Paul  developed  in  the  epistle 
to  the  Galatians  a  religious  philosophy  of  history ;  he 
arrived  at  a  view  of  the  function  of  the  law  in  the 
education  of  mankind  which  disposed  not  only  of  the 
question  at  issue,  but  of  all  such  questions.  He  estab- 
lished for  ever  the  principle  of  salvation  by  faith  and  of 
spiritual  sonship  to  God.  What  that  former  argument 
effects  for  the  history  of  revelation,  is  done  here  for  the 
gospel  in  its  relations  to  society  and  universal  life.  The 
principle  of  Christ's  headship  is  carried  to  its  largest 
results.  The  centre  of  the  Church  becomes  the  centre 
of  the  universe.  God's  plan  of  the  ages  is  disclosed, 
ranging  through  eternity  and  embracing  every  form  of 
being,  and  "  gathering  into  one  all  things  in  the  Christ." 
In  Galatians  and  Romans  the  thought  of  salvation  by 
Christ  breaks  through  Jewish  limits  and  spreads  itself 
over  the  field  of  history ;  in  Colossians  and  Ephesians 
the  idea  of  life  in  Christ  overleaps  the  barriers  of 
time  and  human  existence,  and  brings  ''things  in 
heaven  and  things  in  earth  and  things  beneath  the 
earth  "  under  its  sway. 

The  second,  historical  note  of  original  Paulinism  we 
recognize  in  the  writer's  attitude  towards  Judaism.  We 
should  be  prepared  to  stake  the  genuineness  of  the 
epistle  on  this  consideration  alone.  The  position  and 
point  of  view  of  the  Jewish  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  are 
unique  in  history.  *  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  any 
one  but  Paul  himself,  at  any  other  juncture,  could  have 
represented  the  relation  of  Jew  and   Gentile  to  each 


6  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

other  as  it  is  put  before  us  here.  The  writer  is  a  Jew, 
a  man  nourished  on  the  hope  of  Israel  (i.  12),  who  had 
looked  at  his  fellow-men  across  "the  middle  wall  of 
partition"  (ii.  14).  In  his  view,  the  covenant  and  the 
Christ  belong,  in  the  first  instance  and  as  by  birthright, 
to  the  men  of  Israel.  They  are  "  the  near,"  who  live 
hard  by  the  city  and  house  of  God.  The  blessedness 
of  the  Gentile  readers  consists  in  the  revelation  that 
they  are  "  fellow-heirs  and  of  the  same  body  and  joint- 
partakers  with  us  of  the  promise  in  Christ  Jesus  "  (iii.  6). 
What  is  this  but  to  say,  as  the  apostle  had  done  before, 
that  the  branches  "of  the  naturally  wild  olive  tree" 
were  "  against  nature  grafted  into  the  good  olive  tree  " 
and  allowed  to  "  partake  of  its  root  and  fatness,"  along 
with  "  the  natural  branches,"  the  children  of  the  stock 
of  Abraham  who  claimed  it  for  "  their  own  "  ;  that  "  the 
men  of  faith  are  sons  of  Abraham"  and  "Abraham's 
blessing  has  come  on  the  Gentiles  through  faith  "  ?  * 

For  our  author  this  revelation  has  lost  none  of 
its  novelty  and  surprise.  He  is  in  the  midst  of  the 
excitement  it  has  produced,  and  is  himself  its  chief 
agent  and  mouthpiece  (iii.  1-9).  This  disclosure  of 
God's  secret  plans  for  the  world  overwhelms  him  by 
its  magnitude,  by  the  splendour  with  which  it  invests 
the  Divine  character,  and  the  sense  of  his  personal 
unworthiness  to  be  entrusted  with  it.  We  utterly 
disbelieve  that  any  later  Christian  writer  could  or  would 
have  personated  the  apostle  and  mimicked  his  tone  and 
sentiments  in  regard  to  his  vocation,  in  the  way  that  the 
"critical"  hypothesis  assumes.  The  criterion  of  Erasmus 
is  decisive  :  Nemo  potest  Paulinum  pectus  efftngere. 
St  Paul's    doctrine   of  the    cross  •  is    admittedly    his 


*  Rom.  xi.  16-24  j  Acts  xiii.  26 ;  Gal.  iii.  7,  14. 


2.]  THE    WRITER, 


specific  theological  note.  In  the  shameful  sacrificial 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  he  saw  the  instrument  of  man's 
release  from  the  curse  of  the  broken  law  ;  *  and  through 
this  knowledge  the  cross  which  was  the  *'  scandal " 
of  Saul  the  Pharisee,  had  become  Paul's  glory  and  its 
proclamation  the  business  of  his  life.  It  is  this  doctrine, 
in  its  original  strength  and  fulness,  which  lies  behind 
such  sentences  as  those  of  chapter  i.  7,  ii.  13,  and  v.  2  : 
"We  have  redemption  through  His  blood,  the  forgive- 
ness of  our  trespasses — brought  nigh  in  the  blood  of 
Christ — an  offering  and  sacrifice  to  God  for  an  odour 
of  sweet  smell." 

Another  mark  of  the  apostle's  hand,  his  specific 
spiritual  note,  we  find  in  the  mysticism  that  pervades 
the  epistle  and  forms,  in  fact,  its  substance.  "  I  live 
no  longer :  Christ  lives  in  me."  "  He  that  is  joined 
to  the  Lord  is  one  spirit."  f  In  these  sentences  of 
the  earlier  letters  we  discover  the  spring  of  St  Paul's 
theology,  lying  in  his  own  experience— M^  sense  of 
personal  union  through  the  Spirit  with  Christ  Jesus. 
This  was  the  deepest  fact  of  Paul's  consciousness.  Here 
it  meets  us  at  every  turn.  More  than  twenty  times 
the  phrase  "  in  Christ "  or  its  equivalents  recur,  applied 
to  Christian  acts  or  states.  It  is  enough  to  refer  to 
chapter  iii.  17,  ''that  the  Christ  may  make  His  dwelling 
in  your  hearts  through  faith,"  to  show  how  profoundly 
this  mysterious  relationship  is  realized  in  this  letter. 
No  other  New  Testament  writer  conceived  the  idea  in 
Paul's  way,  nor  has  any  subsequent  writer  of  whom  we 
know  made  the  like  constant  and  original  use  of  it. 
It  was  the  habit  of  the  apostle's  mind,  the  index  of  his 
innermost  life.     Kindred  to  this,  and  hardly  less  con- 

*   Gal.  iii.  10-13  ;  2  Cor.  v.  20,  21,  etc. 
f   Gal.  ii.  20;   I  Cor.  vi.  17. 


8  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

spicuous,  is  his  conception  of  "God  in  Christ"  (2  Cor. 
V.  19)  saving  and  operating  upon  men,  who,  as  we 
read  here,  "chose  us  in  Christ  before  the  world's 
foundation — forgave  us  in  Him — made  us  in  Him  to 
sit  together  in  the  heavenly  places — formed  us  in  Christ 
Jesus  for  good  works." 

The  ethical  note  of  the  true  Paulinism  is  the  concep- 
tion of  the  new  man  in  Christ  Jesus,  whose  sins  were 
slain  by  His  death,  and  who  'shares  His  risen  life  unto 
God  (Rom.  vi.).  From  this  idea,  as  from  a  fountain- 
head,  the  apostle  in  the  parallel  Colossian  epistle  (ch.  iii.) 
deduces  the  new  Christian  morality.  The  temper  and 
disposition  of  the  believer,  his  conduct  in  all  social 
duties  and  practical  affairs  are  the  expression  of  a  "  life 
hid  with  Christ  in  God."  It  is  the  identical  "  new 
man  "  of  Romans  and  Colossians  who  presents  himself 
as  our  ideal  here,  raised  with  Christ  from  the  dead  and 
"sitting  with  Him  in  the  heavenly  places."  The  new- 
ness of  life  in  which  he  walks,  receives  its  impulse  and 
direction  from  this  exalted  fellowship. 

The  characteristics  of  St  Paul's  teaching  which  we 
have  described — his  logical  thoroughness  and  finality, 
his  peculiar  historical,  theological,  spiritual,  and  ethical 
standpoint  and  manner  of  thought — are  combined  in  the 
conception  which  is  the  specific  note  of  this  epistle,  viz., 
its  idea  of  the  Church  as  the  body  of  Christ, — or  in 
other  words,  oi  the  new  humanity  crea.ted  in  Him.  This 
forms  the  centre  of  the  circle  of  thought  in  which  the 
writer*s  mind  moves ;  *  it  is  the  meeting-point  of  the 
various  lines  of  thought  that  we  have  already  traced. 
The  doctrine  of  personal  salvation  wrought  out  in  the 
great  evangelical  epistles  terminates  in  that  of  social 


See  ch.  i.  9-13,  ii.  ji-22,  iii.  5-1 1,  iv.  1-16,  v.  23-32. 


i.  1,2.]  THE   WRITER. 


and  collective  salvation.  A  new  and  precious  title  is 
conferred  on  Christ:  He  is  ^'Saviour  of  the  hody'^ 
(v.  23),  i.e.^  of  the  corporate  Christian  community. 
"The  Son  of  God  who  loved  me  and  gave  up  Himself 
for  ;;/^/'  becomes  "the  Christ"  who  "loved  the  Church 
and  gave  up  Himself  for  her.^^  *  "The  new  man"  is 
no  longer  the  individual,  a  mere  transformed  ego  ; 
he  is  the  type  and  beginning  of  a  new  mankind.  A 
perfect  society  of  men,  all  sons  of  God  in  Christ,  is 
being  constituted  around  the  cross,  in  which  the  old 
antagonisms  are  reconciled,  the  ideal  of  creation  is 
restored,  and  a  body  is  provided  to  contain  the  fulness 
of  Christ,  a  holy  temple  which  God  inhabits  in  the 
Spirit.  Of  this  edifice,  with  the  cross  for  its  centre  and 
Christ  Jesus  for  its  corner-stone,  Jew  and  Gentile  form 
the  material — "  the  Jew  first,"  lying  nearest  to  the  site.f 

The  apostle  Paul  necessarily  conceived  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  humanity  under  the  form  of  a  reconciliation  of 
Israel  and  the  Gentiles.  The  Catholicism  we  have  here  is 
Paul's  Catholicism  of  Gentile  engrafting — not  Clement's, 
of  chtirchly  order  and  uniformity ;  nor  Ignatius',  of  mon- 
episcopal  rule.  It  is  profoundly  characteristic  of  this 
apostle,  that  in  "the  law"  which  had  been  to  his  own 
experience  the  barrier  and  ground  of  quarrel  between 
the  soul  and  God,  "the  strength  of  sin,"  he  should 
come  to  see  likewise  the  barrier  between  men  and  men, 
and  the  strength  of  the  sinful  enmity  which  distracted 
the  Churches  of  his  foundation  (ii.  14-16). 

The  representation  of  the  Church  contained  in  this 
epistle  is,  therefore,  by  no  means  new  in  its  elements. 
Such  texts  as  I  Corinthians  iii.  16,  17  ("Ye  are  God's 
temple,"  etc.)  and  xii.  12-27  (concerning  the  one  body 

*  Gal.  ii.  20;  Eph.  V.  25.  f  Rom.  i.  16;  Eph.  ii.  17-20. 


10  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

and  many  members)  bring  us  near  to  its  actual  expres- 
sion. But  the  figures  of  the  body  and  temple  in  these 
passages,  had  they  stood  alone,  might  be  read  as  mere 
passing  illustrations  of  the  nature  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship. Now  they  become  proper  designations  of  the 
Church,  and  receive  their  full  significance.  While  in 
I  Corinthians,  moreover,  these  phrases  do  not  look 
beyond  the  particular  community  addressed,  in  Ephesians 
they  embrace  the  entire  Christian  society.  This  epistle 
signalizes  a  great  step  forwards  in  the  development  of 
the  apostle's  theology — perhaps  we  might  say,  the  last 
step.  The  Pastoral  epistles  serve  to  put  the  final 
apostolic  seal  upon  the  theological  edifice  that  is  now 
complete.  Their  care  is  with  the  guarding  and  furnish- 
ing of  the  "  great  house  "  *  which  our  epistle  is  engaged 
in  building. 

The  idea  of  the  Church  is  not,  however,  independ- 
ently developed.  Ephesians  and  Colossians  are  com- 
panion letters, — the  complement  and  explanation  of 
each  other.  Both  ^' speak  with  regard  to  Christ  and  the 
Church  "  ;  both  reveal  the  Divine  "  glory  in  the  Church 
and  in  Christ  Jesus."  f  The  emphasis  of  Ephesians 
falls  on  the  former,  of  Colossians  on  the  latter  of  these 
objects.  The  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  and 
that  of  the  nature  of  the  Church  proceed  with  equal 
step.     The  two  epistles  form  one  process  of  thought. 

Criticism  has  attempted  to  derive  first  one  and 
then  the  other  of  the  two  from  its  fellow, — thus,  in 
effect,  stultifying  itself.  Finally  Dr.  Holtzmann,  in 'his 
Kritik   der  Kolosser-  und  Epheser brief e^X  undertook  to 

*  I  Tim.  iii.  15,  16;  2  Tim.  ii.  20,  21. 
t  Eph.  iii.  21,  V.  32. 

\  Kritik  d.  Epheser-  u.  Kolosse7-briefe  auf  Grund  einer  Analyse  ihres 
Verwandtschaftsverhdltnisses  (Leipzig,  1872).     A  work  more  subtle  and 


i.  I,  2.]  THE   WRITER. 


show  that  each  epistle  was  in  turn  dependent  on  the 
other.  There  is,  Holtzmann  says,  a  PauHne  nucleus 
hidden  in  Colossians,  which  he  has  himself  extracted. 
By  its  aid  some  ecclesiastic  of  genius  in  the  second 
century  composed  the  Ephesian  epistle.  He  then  re- 
turned to  the  brief  Colossian  writing  of  St  Paul,  and 
worked  it  up,  with  his  own  Ephesian  composition  lying 
before  him,  into  our  existing  epistle  to  the  Colossians. 
This  complicated  and  too  ingenious  hypothesis  has  not 
satisfied  any  one  except  its  author,  and  need  not  detain 
us  here.  But  Holtzmann  has  at  any  rate  made  good, 
against  his  predecessors  on  the  negative  side,  the  unity 
of  origin  of  the  two  canonical  epistles,  the  fact  that  they 
proceed  from  one  mint  and  coinage.  They  are  twin 
epistles,  the  offspring  of  a  single  birth  in  the  apostle's 
mind.  Much  of  their  subject-matter,  especially  in  the 
ethical  section,  is  common  to  both.  The  glory  of  the 
Christ  and  the  greatness  of  the  Church  are  truths 
inseparable  in  the  nature  of  things,  wedded  to  each 
other.  To  the  confession,  ''Thou  art  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  living  God,"  His  response  ever  is,  ^^  I  will 
build  my  Churchy*  The 'same  correspondence  exists 
between  these  two  epistles  in  the  dialectic  movement 
of  the  apostle's  thought. 

At  the  same  time,  there  is  a  considerable  difference 
between  the  two  writings  in  point  of  style.  M.  Renan, 
who  accepts   Colossians   from   Paul's    hand,    and  who 

scientific,  more  replete  with  learning,  and  yet  more  unconvincing  than 
this  of  Holtzmann,  we  do  not  know. 

Von  Soden,  the  latest  interpreter  of  this  school  and  Holtzmann 's 
collaborateur  in  the  new  Hand-Com7nentar,  accepts  Colossians  in  its 
integrity  as  the  work  of  Paul,  retracting  previous  doubts  on  the  subject. 
Ephesians  he  believes  to  have  been  written  by  a  Jewish  disciple  of 
Paul  in  his  name,  about  the  end  of  the  first  century. 

*  Matt.  xvi.  15-18  ;  John  xvii.  10  :  I  am  glorified  m  them. 


12  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

admits  that  ^' among  all  the  epistles  bearing  the  name 
of  Paul  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  is  perhaps  that 
which  has  been  most  anciently  cited  as  a  composition 
of  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,"  yet  speaks  of  this 
epistle  as  a  "verbose  amplification"  of  the  other,  *'a 
commonplace  letter,  diffuse  and  pointless,  loaded  with 
useless  words  and  repetitions,  entangled  and  overgrown 
with  irrelevancies,  full  of  pleonasms  and  obscurities."  * 
In  this  instance,  Renan's  literary  sense  has  deserted 
him.  While  Colossians  is  quick  in  movement,  terse 
and  pointed,  in  some  places  so  sparing  of  words  as 
to  be  almost  hopelessly  obscure,!  Ephesians  from,  be- 
ginning to  end  is  measured  and  deliberate,  exuberant 
in  language,  and  obscure,  where  it  is  so,  not  from  the 
brevity,  but  from  the  length  and  involution  of  its 
periods.  It  is  occupied  with  a  few  great  ideas,  which 
the  author  strives  to  set  forth  in  all  their  amplitude 
and  significance.  Colossians  is  a  letter  of  discussion ; 
Ephesians  of  reflection,  The  whole  diff'erence  of  style 
lies  in  this.  In  the  reflective  passages  of  Colossians, 
as  indeed  in  the  earlier  epistles,  J  we  find  the  stateliness 
of  movement  and  rhythmical  fulness  of  expression  which 
in  this  epistle  are  sustained  throughout.  Both  epistles 
are  marked  by  those  unfinished  sentences  and  anacohitha, 
the  grammatical  inconsequence  associated  with  close 
continuity  of  thought,  which  is  a  main  characteristic 
of  St  Paul's  style.  §     The  epistle  to  the  Colossians  is 

*  See  his  Saint  Patil,  Introduction,  pp.  xii.-xxiii. 

t  See  Col.  ii.  15,  18,  2023. 

\  E.g.,  in  Rom.  i.  1-7,  viii.  28-30,  xi.  33-36,  xvi.  25-27. 

§  See  the  Winer-Moulton  iV.  T.  Granwiar,  p.  709:  "It  is  in  writers 
of  great  mental  vivacity — more  taken  up  with  the  thought  than  with  the 
mode  of  its  expression — that  we  may  expect  to  find  anacolutha  most 
frequently.  Hence  they  are  especially  numerous  in  the  epistolary  style 
of  the  apostle  Paul." 


i.  1, 2.]  THE  READERS.  13 

like  a  mountain  stream  forcing  its  way  through  some 
rugged  defile ;  that  to  the  Ephesians  is  the  smooth 
lake  below,  in  which  its  chafed  waters  restfully  expand. 
These  sister  epistles  represent  the  moods  of  conflict 
and  repose  which  alternated  in  St  Paul's  mobile 
nature. 

In  general,  the  writings  of  this  group,  belonging  to 
the  time  of  the  apostle's  imprisonment  and  advancing 
age,*  display  less  passion  and  energy,  but  a  more 
tranquil  spirit  than  those  of  the  Jewish  controversy. 
They  are  prison  letters,  the  fruit  of  a  time  when  the 
author's  mind  had  been  much  thrown  in  upon  itself. 
They  have  been  well  styled  "the  afternoon  epistles," 
being  marked  by  the  subdued  and  reflective  temper 
natural  to  this  period  of  life.  Ephesians  is,  in  truth, 
the  typical  representative  of  the  third  group  of  Paul's 
epistles,  as  Galatians  is  of  the  second.  There  is 
abundant  reason  to  be  satisfied  that  this  letter  came, 
as  it  purports  to  do,  from  Paul,  an  apostle  of  Christ 
Jesus  through  God's  will. 

But  that  it  was  addressed  to  "  the  saints  which  are 
In  Ephesus "  is  more  difficult  to  believe.  The  apostle 
has  ^' heard  of  the  faith  which  prevails  amongst"  his 
readers ;  he  presumes  that  they  "  have  heard  of  the 
Christ,  and  were  taught  in  Him  according  as  truth  is 
in  Jesus."  t  He  hopes  that  by  "reading"  this  epistle 
they  will  "  perceive  his  understanding  in  the  mystery 
of  Christ "  (iii.  2-4).  He  writes  somewhat  thus  to  the 
Colossians  and  Romans,  whom  he  had  never  seen ;  % 
but  can  we  imagine  Paul  addressing  in  this  distant  and 

*  Eph.  iii.  I  ;  Phil.  i.  13 ;  Philem.  9. 

f  Ch.  i.  15,  iv.  20,  21. 

X  Col.  i.  4,  ii.  I ;  Rom.  xv.  15,  16. 


14  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


uncertain  fashion  his  children  in  the  faith  ?  In  Ephesus 
he  had  laboured  ''for  the  space  of  three  whole  years" 
(Acts  XX.  31),  longer  than  in  any  other  city  of  the 
Gentile  mission,  except  Antioch.  His  speech  to  the 
Ephesian  elders  at  Miletus,  delivered  four  years  ago, 
was  surcharged  with  personal  feeling,  full  of  pathetic 
reminiscence  and  the  signs  of  interested  acquaintance 
with  the  individual  membership  of  the  Ephesian  Church. 
In  the  epistle  such  signs  are  altogether  wanting.  The 
absence  of  greetings  and  messages  we  could  understand  ; 
these  Tychicus  might  convey  by  word  of  mouth.  But 
how  the  man  who  wrote  the  epistles  to  the  PhiHppians 
and  Corinthians  could  have  composed  this  long  and 
careful  letter  to  his  own  Ephesian  people  without  a 
single  word  of  endearment  or  familiarity,*  and  without 
the  least  allusion  to  his  past  intercourse  with  them,  we 
cannot  understand.  It  is  in  the  destination  that  the 
only  serious  difficulty  lies  touching  the  authorship. 
Nowhere  do  we  see  more  of  the  apostle  and  less  of  the 
man  in  St  Paul;  nowhere  more  of  the  Church,  and 
less  of  this  or  that  particular  church. 

It  agrees  with  these  internal  indications  that  the 
local  designation  is  wanting  in  the  oldest  Greek  copies 
of  the  letter  that  are  extant.  The  two  great  manu- 
scripts of  the  fourth  century,  the  Vatican  and  Sinaitic 
codices,  omit  the  words  *'in  Ephesus."  Basil  in  the 
fourth  century  did  not  accept  them,  and  says  that  ''  the 
old  copies"  were  without  them.  Origen,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  third  century,  seems  to  have  known 
nothing  of  them.  And  Tertullian,  at  the  end  of  the 
second  century,  while  he  condemns  the  heretic  Marcion 

*  "  My  brethren  "  in  ch.  vi.  10  is  an  insertion  of  the  copyists.  Even 
the  closing  benediction,  ch.  vi.  23,  24,  is  in  the  third  person — a  thing 
unexampled  in  St  Paul's  epistles. 


i.  I,  2.]  THE  READERS. 


(who  lived  about  fifty  years  earlier)  for  entitling  the 
epistle  "  To  the  Laodiceans,"  quotes  only  the  title 
against  him,  and  not  the  text  of  the  address,  which  he 
would  presumably  have  done,  had  he  read  it  in  the 
form  familiar  to  us.  We  are  compelled  to  suppose, 
with  Westcott  and  Hort  and  the  textual  critics  generally, 
that  these  words  form  no  part  of  the  original  address. 

Here  the  circular  hypothesis  of  Beza  and  Ussher 
comes  to  our  aid.  It  is  supposed  that  the  letter  was 
destined  for  a  number  of  Churches  in  Asia  Minor, 
which  Tychicus  was  directed  to  visit  in  the  course  of 
the  journey  which  took  him  to  Colossse.*  Along  with 
the  letters  for  the  Colossians  and  Philemon,  he  was 
entrusted  with  this  more  general  epistle,  intended  for 
the  Gentile  Christian  communities  of  the  neighbour- 
ing ■  region  at  large.  During  St  Paul's  ministry  at 
Ephesus,  we  are  told  that  "  all  those  that  dwell  in 
Asia  heard  the  word  of  the  Lord,  both  Jews  and 
Greeks  "  (Acts  xix.  lo).  In  so  large  and  populous  an 
area,  amongst  the  Churches  founded  at  this  time  there 
were  doubtless  others  beside  those  of  the  Lycus  valley 
''which  had  not  seen  Paul's  face  in  the  flesh,"  some 
about  which  the  apostle  had  less  precise  knowledge 
than  he  had  of  these  through  Epaphras  and  Onesimus, 
but  for  whom  he  was  no  less  desirous  that  their 
''  hearts  should  be  comforted,  and  brought  into  all  the 
wealth  of  the  full  assurance  of  the  understanding  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  mystery  of  God  "  (Col.  ii.  i,  2). 

To  which  or  how  many  of  the  Asian  Churches 
Tychicus  would  be  able  to  communicate  the  letter 
was,  presumably,  uncertain  when  it  was  written  at 
Rome;    and  the  designation  was  left  open.     Its  con- 

*  Ch.  vi.  21,  22  ;  Col.  iv.  7-9. 


1.6  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

veyance  by  Tychicus  (vi.  2i,  22)  supplied  the  only 
limit  to  its  distribution.  Proconsular  Asia  was  the 
richest  and  most  peaceful  province  of  the  Empire,  so 
populous  that  it  was  called  ^^  the  province  of  five  hun- 
dred cities."  Ephesus  was  only  the  largest  of  many 
flourishing  commercial  and  manufacturing  towns. 

At  the  close  of  his  epistle  to  the  Colossians  St  Paul 
directs  this  Church  to  procure  ''from  Laodicea,"  in 
exchange  for  their  own,  a  letter  which  he  is  sending 
there  (iv.  16).  Is  it  possible  that  we  have  the  lost 
Laodicean  document  in  the  epistle  before  us  ?  So 
Ussher  suggested  ;  and  though  the  assumption  is  not 
essential  to  his  theory,  it  falls  in  with  it  very  aptly. 
Marcion  may,  after  all,  have  preserved  a  reminiscence 
of  the  fact  that  Laodicea,  as  well  as  Ephesus,  shared  in 
this  letter.  The  conjecture  is  endorsed  by  Lightfoot, 
who  says,  writing  on  Colossians  iv.  16:  "There  are 
good  reasons  for  the  belief  that  St  Paul  here  alludes  to 
the  so-called  epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  which  was  in  fact 
a  circular  letter,  addressed  to  the  principal  Churches 
of  proconsular  Asia.  Tychicus  was  obhged  to  pass 
through  Laodicea  on  his  way  to  Colossae,  and  would 
leave  a  copy  there  before  the  Colossian  letter  was 
delivered."*  The  two  epistles  admirably  supplement 
each  other.  The  Apocalyptic  letter  "  to  the  seven 
churches  which  are  in  Asia,"  ranging  from  Ephesus  to 
Laodicea  (Rev.  ii.,  iii.),  shows  how  much  the  Christian 
communities  of  this  region  had  in  common  and  how 
natural  it  would  be  to  address  them  collectively.  For 
the  same  region,  with  a  yet  wider  scope,  the  ''  first 
catholic  epistle  of  Peter  "  was  destined,  a  writing  that 
has  many  points  of  contact  with  this.     Ephesus  being 

*  Compare  Maclaren  on  Colossians  and  Philetfwn,  p.  406,  in  this 
series.  * 


2.]  THE  READERS. 


the  metropolis  of  the  Asian  Churches,  and  claiming  a 
special  interest  in  St  Paul,  came  to  regard  the  epistle 
as  specially  her  own.  Through  Ephesus,  moreover,  it 
was  communicated  to  the  Church  in  other  provinces. 
Hence  it  came  to  pass  that  when  Paul's  epistles  were 
gathered  into  a  single  volume  and  a  title  was  needed 
for  this  along  with  the  rest,  '^  To  the  Ephesians  "  was 
written  over  it  ;  and  this  reference  standing  in  the 
title,  in  course  of  time  found  its  way  into  the  text  of 
the  address.  We  propose  to  read  this  letter  as  the 
general  epistle  of  Paid  to  the  Churches  oj  Asia,  or  to 
Ephesus  and  its  daughter  Churches. 

But  how  are  we  to  read  the  address,  with  the  local 
definition  wanting  ?     There  are  two  constructions  open 
to  us: — (i)  We  might  suppose  that  a  space  was  left 
blank    in    the    original    to    be  filled   in  afterwards   by 
Tychicus  with  the  names  of  the  particular  Churches  to 
which  he  distributed  copies,  or  to  be  supplied  by  the 
voice  of  the  reader.     But  if  that  were  so,  we  should 
have  expected  to    find   some  trace  of  this  variety  of 
designation  in  the   ancient  witnesses.     As    it    is,    the 
documents    either    give    Ephesus    in    the    address,    or 
supply  no  local  name  at  all.     Nor  is  there,  so  far  as 
we  are  aware,  any  analogy   in  ancient  usage  for  the 
proceeding   suggested.     Moreover,    the    order    of    the 
Greek  words*  is   against    this   supposition. — (2)    We 

*  Tots  0.71015  Toh  oZcTLv  .  .  .  Kot  TTLCTTOLS  cV  XpLCTTU}  'Irjaou.  The  inter- 
position of  the  heterogeneous  attributive  between  ayiois  and  inaToh  is 
harsh  and  improbable — not  to  say,  with  Hofmann,  "  quite  incredible." 
The  two  latest  German  commentaries  to  hand,  that  of  Beck  and  of 
von  Soden  (in  the  Hand-Co inmejitar),  interpreters  of  opposite  schools, 
agree  with  Hofmann  in  rejecting  the  local  adjunct  and  regarding 
TTLCTTols  as  the  complement  of  rots  oI(tlv. 

2 


1 8  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

prefer,  therefore,  to  follow  Origen  *  and  Basil,  with 
some  modern  exegetes,  in  reading  the  sentence  straight 
on,  as  it  stands  in  the  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  copies.  It 
then  becomes  :  To  the  saints,  who  are  indeed  faithful  in 
Christ  Jesus. 

"The  saints"  is  the  apostle's  designation  for  Chris- 
tian believers  generally,!  as  men  consecrated  to  God 
in  Christ  (i  Cor.  i.  2).  The  qualifying  phrase  "those 
who  are  indeed  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus,"  is  admonitory. 
As  Lightfoot  says  with  reference  to  the  parallel  qualifi- 
cation in  Colossians  i.  2,  "  This  unusual  addition  is  full 
of  meaning.  Some  members  of  the  [Asian]  Churches 
were  shaken  in  their  allegiance,  even  if  they  had  not 
fallen  from  it.  The  apostle  therefore  wishes  it  to 
be  understood  that,  when  he  speaks  of  the  saints, 
he  means  those  who  are  true  and  steadfast  members 
of  the  brotherhood.  In  this  way  he  obliquely  hints 
at  the  defection."  By  this  further  definition  "  he 
does  not  directly  exclude  any,  but  he  indirectly  warns 
all."  We  are  reminded  that  we  are  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Colossian  heresy.  Beneath  the  calm 
tenor  of  this  epistle,  the  ear  catches  an  undertone 
of  controversy.  In  chapter  iv.  14  and  vi.  10-20  this 
undertone  becomes  clearly  audible.  We  shall  find  the 
epistle  end  with  the  note  of  warning  with  which  it 
begins. 

The  Salutation  is  according  to  St  Paul's  established 
form  of  greeting. 

*  Origen,  in  his  fanciful  way,  makes  of  rots  olcnv  a  predicate  by 
itself :  "  the  saints  who  are"  who  possess  real  being  like  God  Himself 
(Exod.  iii.  14) — "  called  from  non-existence  into  existence."  He  com- 
pares I  Cor.  i.  28. 

t  See,  e.g.,  ver.  18,  ii.  19,  iii.  18,  iv.  12,  v.  3. 


PRAISE  AND  PRAYER, 
Chapter  i.   3-19. 


19 


00s  irpoeyvu},  /cat  irpou>pL(xev 
<TVixfxbp(f>ovs  TTJs  eUSvos  rod  viov  avTov, 
els  t6  elvaL  avrbu  TrpuTdroKoy  eV  ttoXXoTs  d8e\(pois  * 
oOs  8^  Trpouipiaev,  tovtovs  Kal  kKoXeaev  ' 
Kal.  oCs  eKoXeaev,  tovtovs  kuI  idLKaiuxTev  ' 
oOs  5^  ediKaiwcrei',  tovtovs  Kal  ido^acrep. 

Rom.  viii.  29,  30. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE. 

WE  enter  this  epistle  through  a  magnificent 
gateway.  The  introductory  Act  of  Praise, 
extending  from  verse  3  to  14,  is  one  of  the  most 
sublime  of  inspired  utterances,  an  overture  worthy  of 
the  composition  that  it  introduces.  Its  first  sentence 
compels  us  to  feel  the  insufficiency  of  our  powers  for 
its  due  rendering. 

The  apostle  surveys  in  this  thanksgiving  the  entire 
course  of  the  revelation  of  grace.  Standing  with  the 
men  of  his  day,  the  new-born  community  of  the  sons 
of  God  in  Christ,  midway  between  the  ages  past  and 
to  come,*  he  looks  backward  to  the  source  of  man's 
salvation  when  it  lay  a  silent  thought  in  the  mind 
of  God,  and  forward  to  the  hour  when  it  shall  have 
accomplished  its  promise  and  achieved  our  redemption. 
In  this  grand  evolution  of  the  Divine  plan  three  stages 
are  marked  by  the  refrain,  thrice  repeated.  To  the  praise 
of  His  glory,  of  the  glory  of  His  grace  (vv.  6,  12,  14). 
St  Paul's  psalm  is  thus  divided  into  three  strophes, 
or  stanzas  :  he  sings  the  glory  of  redeeming  love  in 
its  past  designs,  its  present  bestowments,  and  its  future 
fruition.       The  paragraph,  forming   but   one  sentence 

*  Ch.  ii.  7,  iii.  5,  21  ;  Col.  i.  26. 
2X 


22  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


and  spun  upon  a  single  golden  thread,  is  a  piece  of 
thought-music, — a  sort  o^ fugue,  in  which  from  eternity 
to  eternity  the  counsel  of  love  is  pursued  by  Paul's 
bold  and  exulting  thought. 

Despite  the  grammatical  involution  of  the  style  here 
carried  to  an  extreme,  and  underneath  the  apparatus  of 
Greek  pronouns  and  participles,  there  is  a  fine  Hebraistic 
lilt  pervading  the  doxology.  The  refrain  is  in  the 
manner  of  Psalms  xlii.-xliii.,  and  xcix.,  where  in  the 
former  instance  "  health  of  countenance,"  and  in 
the  latter  ''holy  is  He"  gives  the  keynote  of  the 
poet's  melody  and  parts  his  song  into  three  balanced 
stanzas.  In  such  poetry  the  strophes  may  be  unequal 
in  length,  each  developing  its  own  thought  freely,  and 
yet  there  is  harmony  in  their  combination.  Here  the 
central  idea,  that  of  God's  actual  bounty  to  believers, 
fills  a  space  equal  to  that  of  the  other  two.  But  there 
is  a  pause  within  it,  at  verse  lO,  which  in  eff'ect  resumes 
the  idea  of  the  first  strophe  and  works  it  in  as  a  motif 
to  the  second,  carrying  on  both  in  a  full  stream  till 
they  lose  themselves  in  the  third  and  culminating 
movement.  Throughout  the  piece  there  runs  in  vary- 
ing expression  the  phrase  "  in  Christ — in  the  Beloved 
— in  Him — in  whom,"  weaving  the  verses  into  subtle 
continuity.  The  theme  of  the  entire  composition  is 
given  in  verse  3,  which  does  not  enter  into  the  threefold 
division  we  have  described,  but  forms  a  prelude  to  it. 

"  Blessed   be  the  God  and   Father  of  our   Lord  Jesus  Christ  :  who 
hath  blessed  us, 
In    every    blessing   of    the    spirit,    in    the    heavenly   places,     in 
Christ." 

Blessed  be  God! — It  is  the  song  of  the  universe,  in 
which  heaven  and  earth  take  responsive  parts.     "  When 


i.3-6a.]  THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE.  23 


the  morning  stars  sang  together  and  all  the  sons  of 
God  shouted  for  joy,"  this  concert  began,  and  continues 
still  through  the  travail  of  creation  and  the  sorrow  and 
sighing  of  men.  The  work  praises  the  Master.  All 
sinless  creatures,  by  their  order  and  harmony,  by  the 
variety  of  their  powers  and  beauty  of  their  forms  and 
delight  of  their  existence,  declare  their  Creator's  glory. 
That  praise  to  the  Most  High  God  which  the  lower 
creatures  act  instrumentally,  it  is  man's  privilege  to 
utter  in  discourse  of  reason  and  music  of  the  heart. 
Man  is  Nature's  high  priest ;  and  above  other  men,  the 
poet.  Time  will  be,  as  it  has  been,  when  it  shall  be 
accounted  the  poet's  honour  and  the  crown  of  his  art, 
that  he  should  take  the  high  praises  of  God  into  his 
mouth,  making  hymns  to  the  glory  of  the  Supreme 
Maker  and  giving  voice  to  the  dumb  praise  of  inani- 
mate nature  and  to  the  noblest  thoughts  of  his  fellows 
concerning  the  Blessed  God. 

Blessed  be  God  I — It  is  the  perpetual  strain  of  the 
Old  Testament,  from  Melchizedek  down  to  Daniel, — of 
David  in  his  triumph,  and  Job  in  his  misery.  But  not 
hitherto  could  men  say,  Blessed  be  the  God  and  Father 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  1  He  was  ''  the  Most  High  God, 
the  God  of  heaven," — "  Jehovah,  God  of  Israel,  who 
only  doeth  wondrous  things," — "  the  Shepherd  "  and 
''the  Rock"  of  His  people, — "the  true  God,  the  living 
God,  and  an  everlasting  King";  and  these  are  glorious 
titles,  which  have  raised  men's  thoughts  to  moods  of 
highest  reverence  and  trust.  But  the  name  of  Father, 
and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  surpasses  and 
outshines  them  all.  With  wondering  love  and  joy  un- 
speakable St  Paul  pronounced  this  Benedictus.  God 
was  not  less  to  him  the  Almighty,  the  High  and 
Holy    One  dwelling  in  eternity,    than  in  the   days  of 


24  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

his  youthful  Jewish  faith  ;  but  the  Eternal  and  All-holy 
One  was  now  his  Father  in  Jesus  Christ.  Blessed  be  His 
name  :  and  let  the  whole  earth  be  filled  with  His  glory  ! 

The  apostle's  psalm  is  a  psalm  of  thanksgiving  to 
God  blessing  and  blessed.  The  second  clause  rhyth- 
mically answers  to  the  first.  True,  our  blessing  of 
Him  is  far  different  from  His  blessing  of  us  :  ours  in 
thought  and  words ;  His  in  mighty  deeds  of  salvation. 
Yet  in  the  fruit  of  lips  giving  thanks  to  His  name 
there  is  a  revenue  of  blessing  paid  to  God  which  He 
delights  in,  and  requires.  "O  Thou  that  inhabitest 
the  praises  of  Israel,"  grant  us  to  bless  Thee  while  we 
live  and  to  lift  up  our  hands  in  Thy  name  ! 

By  three  quaHfying  adjuncts  the  blessing  which  the 
Father  of  Christ  bestowed  upon  us  is  defined  :  in 
respect  of  its  nature^  its  sphere,  and  \\.s  personal  ground. 

The  blessings  that  prompt  the  apostle's  praise  are 
not  such  as  those  conspicuous  in  the  Old  Covenant : 
"  Blessed  shalt  thou  be  in  the  city,  and  in  the  field ; 
in  the  fruit  of  thy  body,  and  the  fruit  of  thy  ground , 
and  the  increase  of  thy  kine ;  blessed  shall  be  thy 
basket,  and  thy  kneading-trough  "  (Deut.  xxviii.  3-5). 
The  gospel  pronounces  beatitudes  of  another  style  : 
"  Blessed' are  the  poor  in  spirit;  blessed  the  meek,  the 
merciful,  the  pure  in  heart,  the  persecuted."  St  Paul 
had  small  share  indeed  in  the  former  class  of  bless- 
ings,— a  childless,  landless,  homeless  man.  Yet  what 
happiness  and  wealth  are  his  !  Out  of  his  poverty  he 
is  making  all  the  ages  rich  !  From  the  gloom  of  his 
prison  he  sheds  a  light  that  will  guide  and  cheer  the 
steps  of  multitudes  of  earth's  sad  wayfarers.  Not 
certainly  in  the  earthly  places  where  he  finds  himself 
is  Paul  the  prisoner  of  Christ  Jesus  blessed  ;  but  ''in 
spiritual    blessing"   and    "in    heavenly   places"    how 


i.3-6«.]  THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE.  25 

abundantly !     His  own  blessedness  he  claims   for  all 
who  are  in  Christ. 

Blessing  spiritual  in  its  nature  is,  in  St  Paul's  con- 
ception of  things,  blessing  in  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit  * 
In    His  quickening  our  spirit  lives;  through  His   in- 
dwelling health,  blessedness,  eternal  life  are  ours.     In 
this  verse  justly  the  theologians  recognize  the  Trinity 
of  the  Father,  Christ,  and  the  Holy  Spirit— Blessing 
in  the  heavenly  places  is  not  so  much  blessing  coming 
from    those    places — from    God    the    Father   who    sits 
there— as  it  is  blessing  which  hfts  us  into  that  supernal 
region,  giving  to'  us  a  place  and  heritage  in  the  world 
of  God  and  of  the  angels.     Two  passages  of  the  com- 
panion epistles  interpret  this  phrase:  ''Your  life  is  hid 
with   Christ   in  God"  (Col.  iii.  3);    and   again,  ''Our 
citizenship  is  in  heaven  "  (Phil.  iii.  20). — The  decisive 
note  of  St  Paul's   blessedness  lies   in   the  words  "in 
Christ."       For    him    all    good    is    summed  up   there. 
Spiritual,  heavenly,  and  Christian  :  these  three  are  one. 
In  Christ  dying,  risen,  reigning,  God  the  Father  has 
raised   believing  men   to  a  new  heavenly  life.     From 
the  first  inception  of  the  work  of  grace  to  its  consum- 
mation, God  thinks  of  men,  speaks  to  them  and  deals 
with    them    in   Christ.     To   Him,    therefore,    with    the 
Father  be  eternal  praise  ! 

"As  He  chose  us  in  Him  before  the  world's  foundation, 
That  we  should  be  holy  and  unblemished  before  Him  : 
When  in  love  He  foreordained  us 

To  filial  adoption  through  Jesus  Christ  for  Himself, 
According  to  the  good  pleasure  of  His  will, — 

To  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  His  grace  ''  (vv.  ^-6a). 

Here  is  St  Paul's  first  chapter  of  Genesis.     In  the 

*  Vv,  13,  14;  Rom.  viii.  2-6,  16;   i  Cor.  ii.  12;  Gal.  v.  16,  22-25. 


26  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

beginning  was  the  election  of  grace.  There  is  nothing 
unprepared,  nothing  unforeseen  in  God's  deaHngs  with 
mankind.  His  wisdom  and  knowledge  are  as  deep  as 
His  grace  is  wide  (Rom.  xi.  33).  Speaking  of  his  own 
vocation,  the  apostle  said  :  "  It  pleased  God,  who  set 
me  apart  from  my  mother's  womb,  to  reveal  His  Son 
in  me"  (Gal.  i.  15,  16).  He  does  but  generalize  this 
conception  and  carry  it  two  steps  further  back — from 
the  origin  of  the  individual  to  the  origin  of  the  race, 
and  from  the  beginning  of  the  race  to  the  beginning 
of  the  world — when  he  asserts  that  the  community  of 
redeemed  men  was  chosen  in  Christ  before  the  world's 
foundation. 

^'  The  world  "  is  a  work  of  time,  the  slow  structure 
of  innumerable  yet  finite  ages.  Science  affirms  on  its 
own  grounds  that  the  visible  universe  had  a  beginning, 
as  it  has  its  changes  and  its  certain  end.  .  Its  structural 
plan,  its  unity  of  aim  and  movement,  show  it  to  be  the 
creation  of  a  vast  Intelligence.  Harmony  and  law,  all 
that  makes  science  possible  is  the  product  of  thought. 
Reason  extracts  from  nature  what  Reason  has  first 
put  there.  The  longer,  the  more  intricate  and  grand 
the  process,  the  farther  science  pushes  back  the  begin- 
ning in  our  thoughts,  the  more  sublime  and  certain 
the  primitive  truth  becomes  :  ^'  In  the  beginning  God 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 

The  world  is  a  system ;  it  has  a  method  and  a  plan, 
therefore  a  foundation.  But  before  the  foundation, 
there  was  the  Founder.  And  man  was  in  His  thoughts, 
and  the  redeemed  Church  of  Christ.  While  yet  the 
world  was  not  and  the  immensity  of  space  stretched 
lampless  and  unpeopled,  we  were  in  the  mind  of  God  ; 
His  thought  rested  with  complacency  upon  His  human 
sons,  whose  '*  name  was  written   in  the    book  of  life 


i,  3-6a.]  THE  ETERNAL   PURPOSE.  27 

from  the  foundation  of  the  world."  This  amazing 
statement  is  only  the  logical  consequence  of  St  Paul's 
experience  of  Divine  grace,  joined  to  his  conviction  of 
the  infinite  v^^isdom  and  eternal  being  of  God. 

When  he  says  that  God  ^*  chose  us  in  Christ  before 
the  foundation  of  the  world" — or  before  founding  the 
world — this  is  not  a  mere  mark  of  time.  It  intimates 
that  in  laying  His  plans  for  the  v^^orld  the  Creator  had 
the  purpose  of  redeeming  grace  in  view.  The  kingdom 
which  the  *'  blessed  children  "  of  the  Father  of  Christ 
"inherit,"  is  the  kingdom  ^^  prepared  ioT  them  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world"  (Matt.  xxv.  34).  Salvation 
lies  as  deep  as  creation.  The  provision  for  it  is  eternal. 
For  the  universe  of  being  was  conceived,  fashioned, 
and  built  up  ^'  in  Christ."  The  argument  of  Colossians 
i.  13-22  lies  behind  these  words.  The  Son  of  God's 
love,  in  whom  and  for  whom  the  worlds  were  made, 
always  was  potentially  the  Redeemer  of  men,  as  He  was 
the  image  of  God  (Col.  i.  14,  15).  He  looked  forward 
to  this  mission  from  eternity,  and  was  in  spirit  "the 
Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  "  (Rev. 
xiii.  8).  Creation  and  redemption,  Nature  and  the 
Church,  are  parts  of  one  system  ;  and  in  the  recon- 
ciliation of  the  cross  all  orders  of  being  are  concerned, 
"  whether  the  things  upon  the  earth  or  the  things  in 
the  heavens." 

Evil  existed  before  man  appeared  on  the  earth  to 
be  tempted  and  to  fall.  Through  the  geological  record 
we  hear  the  voice  of  creation  groaning  for  long  aeons 
in  its  pain. 

"  Dragons  of  the  prime, 
That  tare  each  other  in  their  slime," 

grim  prophets  of  man's  brutal  and  murderous  passions, 


2'S  THE  EPISTLE   TO   TtiE  EPHESIANS. 

bear  witness  to  a  war  in  nature  that  goes  back  far 
towards  the  foundation  of  the  world.  And  this  rent 
and  discord  in  the  frame  of  things  it  was  His  part  to 
reconcile  ''  in  whom  and  for  whom  all  things  were 
created."  This  universal  deliverance,  it  seems,  is 
dependent  upon  ours.  "  The  creation  itself  lifts  up  its 
head,  and  is  looking  out  for  the  revelation  of  the  sons  of 
God"  (Rom.  viii.  19).  In  founding  the  world,  foresee- 
ing its  bondage  to  corruption,  God  prepared  through 
His  elect  sons  in  Christ  a  deliverance  the  glory  of 
which  will  make  its  sufferings  to  seem  but  a  light  thing. 
"  In  thee,"  said  God  to  Abraham,  "  shall  all  the  kindreds 
of  the  earth  be  blessed  "  :  so  in  the  final  "  adoption, — 
to  wit,  the  redemption  of  our  body "  (Rom.  viii.  23), 
all  creatures  shall  exult  ;  and  our  mother  earth,  still 
travailing  in  pain  with  us,  will  remember  her  anguish 
no  more. 

The  Divine  election  of  men  in  Christ  is  further 
defined  in  the  words  of  verse  5  :  "  Having  in  love  pre- 
destined us,"  and  '^  according  to  the  good  pleasure  of 
His  will."  Election  is  selection ;  it  is  the  antecedent 
in  the  mind  of  God  in  Christ  of  the  preference  which 
Christ  showed  when  He  said  to  His  disciples,  '^  I  have 
chosen  you  out  of  the  world."  It  is,  moreover,  2.  fore- 
ordination  in  love :  an  expression  which  indicates  on 
the  one  hand  the  disposition  in  God  that  prompted  and 
sustains  His  choice,  and  on  the  other  the  determination 
of  the  almighty  Will  whereby  the  all-wise  Choice  is  put 
into  operation  and  takes  effect.  In  this  pre-ordaining 
control  of  human  history  God  '' determined  the  fore- 
appointed  seasons  and  the  bounds  of  human  habitation  " 
(Acts  xvii.  26).  The  Divine  prescience — that  ''  depth 
of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God  " — as  well  as  His 
absolute  righteousness,  forbids  the  treasonable  thought 


i.3-6a.]  THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE.  29 

of  anything  arbitrary  or  unfair  cleaving  to  this  pre- 
determination— anything  that  should  override  our  free- 
will and  make  our  responsibility  an  illusion.  "Whom 
He  did  foreknow,  He  also  did  predestinate"  (Rom.  viii. 
29).    He  foresees  everything,  and  allows  for  everything. 

The  consistence  of  foreknowledge  with  free-will  is 
an  enigma  which  the  apostle  did  not  attempt  to 
solve.  His  reply  to  all  questions  touching  the  justice 
of  God's  administration  in  the  elections  of  grace — 
questions  painfully  felt  and  keenly  agitated  then  as 
they  are  now,  and  that  pressed  upon  himself  in  the 
case  of  his  Jewish  kindred  with  a  cruel  force  (Rom. 
ix.  3) — his  answer  to  his  own  heart,  and  to  us,  lies  in 
the  last  ^words  of  verse  5:  '^according  to  the  good 
pleasure  of  His  will."  It  is  what  Jesus  said  concern- 
ing the  strange  preferences  of  Divine  grace  :  '*  Even  so 
Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  Thy  sight."  What 
pleases  Him  can  only  be  wise  and  right.  What  pleases 
Him,  must  content  us.  Impatience  is  unbelief.  Let  us 
wait  to  see  the  end  of  the  Lord.  In  numberless  instances 
— such  as  that  of  the  choice  between  Jacob  and  Esau, 
and  that  of  Paul  and  the  believing  remnant  of  Israel  as 
against  their  nation— God's  ways  have  justified  them- 
selves to  after  times  ;  so  they  will  universally.  Our 
little  spark  of  intelligence  glances  upon  one  spot  in  a 
boundless  ocean,  on  the  surface  of  immeasurable  depths. 

The  purpose  of  this  loving  fore-ordination  of  believing 
men  in  Christ  is  twofold ;  it  concerns  at  once  their 
charade)-  and  their  state  :  '^  He  chose  us  out — that  we 
should  be  holy  and  without  blemish  in  His  sight,"  and 
*'  unto  adoption  as  sons  through  Jesus  Christ  for 
Himself."  These  two  purposes  are  one.  God's  sons 
must  be  holy  ;  and  holy  men  are  His  sons.  For  this 
end  '*  we  "  were  elected  of  God  in  the  beginning.     Nay, 


30  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

with  this  end  in  view  the  world  was  founded  and  the 
human  race  came  into  being,  to  provide  God  with  such 
sons*  and  that  Christ  might  be  "the  firstborn  among 
many  brethren  "  (Rom.  viii.  28-30). 

"  That  we  should  be  holy  " — should  be  saints.  This 
the  readers  are  already :  "  To  the  saints  "  the  apostle 
writes  (ver.  i).  They  are  men  devoted  to  God  by 
their  own  choice  and  will,  meeting  God's  choice  and 
will  for  them.  Imperfect  saints  they  may  be,  by  no 
means  as  yet  "  without  blemish  "  ;  but  they  are  already, 
and  abidingly,  ^'sanctified  in  Christ  Jesus  "  (i  Cor.  i.  2) 
and  "  sealed "  for  God's  possession  '*  by  the  Holy 
Spirit"  (vv.  13,  14).  In  this  fact  lies  their  hope  of 
moral  perfection  and  the  impulse  and  power  to  attain  it. 
Their  task  is  to  *'  perfect "  their  existing  ''  holiness  " 
(2  Cor.  vii.  i),  "  cleansing  themselves  from  all  defile- 
ment of  flesh  and  spirit."  Let  no  Christian  say,  "  I  do 
not  pretend  to  be  a  saint."  This  is  to  renounce  your 
calling.  You  are  a  saint  if  you  are  a  true  believer  in 
Christ ;  and  you  are  to  be  an  unblemished  saint. 

Thus  the  Church  is  at  last  to  be  presented,  and 
every  man  in  his  own  order,  ''  faultless  before  the 
presence  of  His  glory,  with  exceeding  joy."  f  God 
could  not  invite  us  in  His  grace  to  anything  inferior. 
A  blemished  saint — a  smeared  picture,  a  flawed  marble — 
this  is  not  like  His  work  ;  it  is  not  like  Himself.  Such 
saintship  cannot  approve  itself  *'  before  Him."  He  must 
carry  out  His  ideal,  must  fashion  the  new  man  as  he 
was  created  in  Christ  after  His  own  faultless  image, 
and  make  human  holiness  a  transcript  of  the  Divine 
(i  Peter  i.  16). 


*  ets  avTbv,  for  Him  ;  not  a{)T(^,  to  Him. 
t  Ch.  V.  25-27  ;  Col.  i.  27-29  ;  Jude  24. 


1. 3-6a.]  THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE.  31 


Now,  this  Divine  character  is  native  to  the  sons  of 
God.  The  ideal  which  God  had  for  men  was  always 
the  same.  The  father  of  the  race  was  made  in  His 
image.  In  the  Old  Testament  Israel  receives  the 
command  :  "  You  shall  be  holy,  for  I,  Jehovah  your 
God,  am  holy."  But  it  was  in  Jesus  Christ  that 
the  breadth  of  this  command  was  disclosed,  and  the 
possibihty  of  our  personal  obedience  to  it.  The 
law  of  Christian  sonship,  manifest  only  in  shadow  in 
the  Levitical  sanctity,  is  now  pronounced  by  Jesus  : 
"  You  shall  be  perfect,  as  your  heavenly  Father  is  per- 
fect." Verses  4  and  5  are  therefore  strictly  parallel: 
God  elected  us  in  Christ  to  be  perfect  saints  ;  for  He 
predestined  us  through  Jesus  Christ  to  be  His  sons. 

Sonship  to  Himself  is  the  Christian  status,  the  rank 
and  standing  which  God  confers  on  those  who  believe 
in  His  Son  ;  it  accrues  to  them  by  the  fact  that  they 
are  in  Christ.*  It  is  defined  by  the  term  adoption,  which 
St  Paul  employs  in  this  sense  in  Romans  viii.  15,  23, 
as  well  as  in  Galatians  iv.  5.  Adoption  was  a  peculiar 
institution  of  Roman  law,  familiar  to  Paul  as  a  citizen 
of  Rome  ;  and  it  aptly  describes  to  Gentile  believers 
their  relation  to  the  family  of  God.  "  By  adoption 
under  the  Roman  law  an  entire  stranger  in  blood 
became  a  member  of  the  family  into  which  he  was 
adopted,  exactly  as  if  he  had  been  born  in  it.  He 
assumed  the  family  name,  partook  in  its  system  of 
sacrificial  rites,  and  became,  not  on  sufferance  or  at 
will,  but  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  member  of  the 
house  of  his  adopter.  .  .  .  This  metaphor  was  St  Paul's 
translation  into  the  language  of  Gentile  thought  of 
Christ's  great  doctrine  of  the  New  Birth.     He  exchanges 

*  On  sonship,  see  Chapters  XV.— XVIL  and  XIX.  in  The  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians  (Expositor's  Bible), 


32  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

the  physical  metaphor  of  regeneration  for  the  legal 
metaphor  of  adoption.  The  adopted  becomes  in  the 
eye  of  the  law  a  new  creature.  He  was  born  again 
into  a  new  family.  By  the  aid  of  this  figure  the  Gentile 
convert  was  enabled  to  realize  in  a  vivid  manner  the 
fatherhood  of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  the  faithful,  the 
obliteration  of  past  penalties,  the  right  to  the  mystic 
inheritance.  He  was  enabled  to  realize  that  upon  this 
spiritual  act  *  Old  things  passed  away  and  all  things 
became  new.' "  * 

This  exalted  status  belonged  to  men  in  the  purpose 
of  God  from  eternity;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it 
was  instituted  "  through  Jesus  Christ,"  the  historical 
Redeemer.  Whether  previously  (Jewish)  servants  in 
God's  house  or  (Gentile)  aliens  excluded  from  it  (ii. 
12),  those  who  believed  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ  received 
a  spirit  of  adoption  and  dared  to  call  God  Father! 
This  unspeakable  privilege  had  been  preparing  for 
them  through  the  ages  past  in  God's  hidden  wisdom. 
Throughout  the  wild  course  of  human  apostasy  the 
Father  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  He  might 
again  through  Jesus  Christ  make  men  His  sons  ;  and 
His  promises  and  preparations  were  directed  to  this 
one  end.  The  predestination  having  such  an  end, 
how  fitly  it  is  said  :  "  in  love  having  foreordained  us." 

Four  times,  in  these  three  verses,  with  exulting 
emphasis,  the  apostle  claims  this  distinction  for  "us." 
Who,  then,  are  the  objects  of  the  primordial  election 
of  grace  ?  Does  St  Paul  use  the  pronoun  distribu- 
tively,  thinking  of  individuals — you  and  me  and  so 
many  others,  the  personal  recipients  of  saving  grace  ? 

*  From  a  valuable  and  suggestive  paper  by  W.  E.  Ball,  LL.D.,  on 
"St  Paul  and  the  Roman  Law,"  in  the  Contemporary  Reviro),  August 
1891. 


i.3-6a.]  THE  ETERNAL  PURPOSE.  33 

or  does  he  mean  the  Church,  as  that  is  collectively 
the  family  of  God  and  the  object  of  His  loving  ordina- 
tion ?  In  this  epistle,  the  latter  is  surely  the  thought 
in  the  apostle's  mind.*  As  Hofmann  says  :  "  The  body 
of  Christians  is  the  object  of  this  choice,  not  as  com- 
posed of  a  certain  number  of  individuals — a  sum  of 
^  the  elect '  opposed  to  a  sum  of  the  non-elect — but  as 
the  Church  taken  out  of  and  separated  from  the  world." 

On  the  other  hand,  we  may  not  widen  the  pronoun 
further ;  we  cannot  allow  that  the  sonship  here  signified 
is  man's  natural  relation  to  God,  that  to  which  he  was 
born  by  creation.  This  robs  the  word  "  adoption  "  of 
its  distinctive  force.  The  sonship  in  question,  while 
grounded  ''  in  Christ "  from  eternity,  is  conferred 
'*  through  "  the  incarnate  and  crucified  ''  Jesus  Christ "  ; 
it  redounds  "  to  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  His  graced 
Now,  grace  is  God's  redeeming  love  toward  sinners. 
God's  purpose  of  grace  toward  mankind,  embedded,  as 
one  may  say,  in  creation,  is  realized  in  the  body  of  re- 
deemed men.  But  this  community,  we  rejoice  to  believe, 
is  vastly  larger  than  the  visible  aggregate  of  Churches ; 
for  how  many  who  knew  not  His  name,  have  yet 
walked  in  the  true  light  which  lighteth  every  man. 

There  lies  in  the  words  ''  in  Christ  "  a  principle  of 
exclusion,  as  well  as  of  wide  inclusion.  Men  cannot 
be  in  Christ  against  their  will,  who  persistently  put 
Him,  His  gospel  and  His  laws,  away  from  them. 
When  we  close  with  Christ  by  faith,  we  begin  to  enter 
into  the  purpose  of  our  being.  We  find  the  place 
prepared  for  us  before  the  foundation  of  the  world  in 
the  kingdom  of  Divine  love.  We  live  henceforth  "  to 
the  praise  of  the  glory  of  His  grace  !  " 

*  See  w.  12,  13,  where  Jews  and  Gentiles,  collectively,  are  distin- 
guished;  and  ch.  ii,  11,  12,  iii,  2-6,  21,  iv.  4,  5,  v,  25-27. 

3 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  BESTOWMENT  OF  GRACE. 

"  Which  grace  He  bestowed  on  us,  in  the  Beloved  One  : 
In  whom  we  have  the  redemption  through  His  blood,  the  forgiveness 
of  our  trespasses, 

According  to  the  riches  of  His  grace  : 
Which  He  made  to  abound  toward  us  in  all  wisdom  and  prudence, 
making  known  to  us  the  mystery  of  His  will, 
According  to  His  good  pleasure  : 
Which  He  purposed  in  Him,  for  dispensation  in  the  fulness 

of  the  times. 
Purposing  to  gather  into  one  body  all  things  in  the  Christ — 
The  things  belonging  to  the  heavens,  and  the  things  upon  the 
earth — yea,  in  Him, 
In  whom  also  we  received  our  heritage,  as  we  had  been  foreordained, 

According  to  purpose  of  Him  who  worketh  all  things 
According  to  the  counsel  of  His  will, — 

That  we  might  be  to  the  praise  of  His  glory."  * 
Eph.  i.  6b-i2a. 

THE  blessedness  of  men  in  Christ  is  not  matter 
of  purpose  only,  but  of  reality  and  experience. 
With  the  word  grace  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  verse 
the  apostle's  thought  begins  a  new  movement.      We 

*  The  arrangement  above  made  of  the  lines  of  this  intricate  passage 
is  designed  to  guide  the  eye  to  its  elucidation.  Our  disposition  of  the 
verses  has  not  been  determined  by  any  preconceived  interpretation, 
but  by  the  parallelism  of  expression  and  cadences  of  phrase.  The 
rhythmical  structure  of  the  piece,  it  seems  to  us,  supplies  the  key  to 
its  explanation,  and  reduces  to  order  its  long-drawn  and  heaped -up 
relative  and  prepositional  clauses,  which  are  grammatically  so 
unmanageable. 

34 


i.  6b-i2a.]         THE  BESTOWMENT   OF  GRACE. 


have  seen  Grace  hidden  in  the  depths  of  eternity  in 
the  form  of  sovereign  and  fatherly  election,  lodging  its 
purpose  in  the  foundation  of  the  world.  From  those 
mysterious  depths  we  turn  to  the  living  world  in  our 
own  breast.  There,  too,  Grace  dwells  and  reigns : 
*' which  grace  He  imparted  to  us,  in  the  Beloved, — in 
whom  we  have  redemption  through  His  blood." 

The  leading  word  of  this  clause  we  can  only  para- 
phrase ;  it  has  no  English  equivalent.  St  Paul  perforce 
turns  grace  into  a  verb  ;  this  verb  occurs  in  the  New 
Testament  but  once  besides, — in  Luke  i.  28,  the  angel's 
salutation  to  Mary  :  "  Hail  thou  that  art  highly  favoured 
(made-an-object-of-grace)."  *  If  we  could  employ  our 
verb  to  grace  in  a  sense  corresponding  to  that  of  the 
noun  grace  in  the  apostle's  dialect  and  nearly  the  oppo- 
site of  to  disgrace,  then  graced  would  signify  what  he 
means  here,  viz.,  treated  with  grace,  made  its  recipients. 

God  ^'showed  us  grace  in  the  Beloved^^ — or,  to  render 
the  phrase  with  full  emphasis,  "  in  that  Beloved  One  " 
— even  as  He  ''  chose  us  in  Him  before  the  world's 
foundation  "  and  "  in  love  predestined  us  for  adoption." 
The  grace  is  conveyed  upon  the  basis  of  our  relation- 
ship to  Christ :  on  that  ground  it  was  conceived  in  the 
counsels  of  eternity.  The  Voice  from  heaven  which 
said  at  the  baptism  of  Jesus  and  again  at  the  trans- 
figuration, "This  is  my  Son,  the  Beloved,"  uttered  God's 
eternal  thought  regarding  Christ.  And  that  regard  of 
God  toward  the  Son  of  His  love  is  the  fountain  of  His 
love  and  grace  to  men. 

Christ  is  the  Beloved  not  of  the  Father  alone,  but  of 
the  created  universe.     All  that  know  the  Lord  Jesus 

*  "ILaXpe,  Kexapt-Tcj/JL^VT].  It  is  impossible  to  reproduce  in  English  the 
beautiful  assonance— the  p/ay  of  sound  and  sense — in  Gabriel's  greeting, 
as  St  Luke  renders  it. 


36  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

must  needs  love  and  adore  Him — unless  their  hearts 
are  eaten  out  by  sin.  Not  to  love  Him  is  to  be  anathema. 
"  If  any  man  love  me,"  said  Jesus,  "  my  Father  will 
love  him."  Nothing  so  much  pleases  God  and  brings 
us  into  fellowship  with  God  so  direct  and  joyous,  as  our 
love  to  Jesus  Christ.  About  this  at  least  heaven  and 
earth  may  agree,  that  He  is  the  altogether  lovely  and 
love-w^orthy.  Agreement  in  this  will  bring  about  agree- 
ment in  everything.  The  love  of  Christ  will  tune  the 
jarring  universe  into  harmony. 

I.  Of  grace  bestowed,  the  first  manifestation,  in  the 
experience  of  Paul  and  his  readers,  was  the  forgiveness 
of  their  trespasses  (comp.  ii.  13-18).  This  is  "the 
redemption  "  that  "  we  have,"  And  it  comes  '^  through 
His  blood."  The  epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  Romans  * 
expound  at  length  the  apostle's  doctrine  touching  the 
remission  of  sin  and  the  relation  of  Christ's  death  to 
human  transgression.  To  redemption  we  shall  return 
in  considering  verse  14,  where  the  word  is  used,  as 
again  in  chapter  iv.  30,  in  its  further  application. 

In  Romans  iii.  22-26  *'  the  redemption  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  "  is  declared  to  be  the  means  by  which  we 
are  acquitted  in  the  judgement  of  God  from  the  guilt 
of  past  transgressions.  And  this  redemption  consists 
in  the  "propitiatory  sacrifice"  which  Christ  offered  in 
shedding  His  blood — a  sacrifice  wherein  we  participate 
"  through  faith."  The  language  of  this  verse  contains 
by  implication  all  that  is  affirmed  there.  In  this  con- 
nexion, and  according  to  the  full  intent  of  the  word, 


*  See    Rom.  i.  16-18,  iii.  19 — v.  21,  vi,  7,  vii.  1-6,  viii.  1-4,  31-34, 

.  6-9  ;  I  Cor.  XV.  3,  4,  17,  56,  57  ;  2  Cor.  v.  18-21 ;  Gal.  ii.  14— iii.  14, 

vi.  12-14.     The  latter  passages  the  writer  has  endeavoured  to  expound 

in  Chapters  X.  to  XII.  and  XXVIII.  of  his  Conimentary  on  Galatians 

in  this  series. 


i.6^-i2a.]         THE  BESTOWMENT  OF  GRACE.  37 


redemption  is  release  by  ransom.  The  life-blood  of 
Jesus  Christ  was  the  price  that  He  paid  in  order  to 
secure  our  lawful  release  from  the  penalties  entailed  by 
our  trespasses.*  This  Jesus  Christ  implied  beforehand, 
when  He  spoke  of"  giving  His  life  a  ransom  for  many  "  ; 
and  when  He  said,  in  handing  to  His  disciples  the  cup 
of  the  Last  Supper :  "  This  is  my  blood,  the  blood  of 
the  covenant,  which  is  shed  for  many  for  the  remission 
of  sins."  Using  another  synonymous  term,  St  Paul 
tells  us  that  "  Christ  bought  us  out  of  the  curse  of  the  • 
law"  ;  and  he  bases  on  this  expression  a  strong  practical 
appeal :  "  You  are  not  your  own,  for  you  were  bought 
with  a  price."  t  These  sayings,  and  others  like  them, 
point  unmistakably  to  the  fact  that  our  trespasses  as 
men  against  God's  inflexible  law,  apart  from  Christ's 
intervention,  must  have  issued  in  our  eternal  ruin.  By 
His  death  on  the  cross  Christ  has  made  such  amends 
to  the  law,  that  the  awful  sentence  is  averted,  and  our 
complete  release  from  the  power  of  sin  is  rendered 
possible. 

On  rising  from  the  dead  our  Saviour  commissioned 
the  apostles  to  "  proclaim  in  His  name  repentance  and 
remission  of  sins  to  all  nations  "  (Luke  xxiv.  47).  It 
was  thus  He  proposed  to  save  the  world.  This  pro- 
clamation is  the  "  good  news "  of  the  gospel.  The 
announcement  meets  the  first  need  of  the  serious  and 
awakened  human  spirit.     It  answers  the  question  which 


*  It  is  an  error  to  suppose,  as  one  sometimes  hears  it  said,  that  tres- 
passes or  transgressio7ts  are  a  light  and  comparatively  trivial  form  of  sin. 
Both  words  denote,  in  the  language  of  Scripture,  definite  offences 
against  known  law,  departures  from  known  duty.  Adam's  sin  was  the 
typical  "transgression"  and  "  trespass"  (Rom.  v.  14,  15,  etc.  ;  comp. 
ii.  23  ;  Gal.  iii.  19). 

t  Gal.  iii.  13  ;  i  Cor.  vi.  19,  20. 


38  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


arises  in  the  breast  of  every  man  who  thinks  earnestly 
about  his  personal  relations  to  God  and  to  the  laws  of 
his  being.  We  cannot  wonder  that  St  Paul  sets  the 
remission  of  sins  first  amongst  the  bestowments  of  God's 
grace,  and  makes  it  the  foundation  of  all  the  rest. 

Does  it  occupy  the  like  position  in  modern  Christian 
teaching  ?  Do  we  realize  the  criminality  of  sin,  the  fear- 
fulness  of  God's  displeasure,  the  infinite  worth  of  His 
forgiveness  and  the  obligations  under  which  it  places 
us,  as  St  Paul  and  his  converts  did  ?  or  even  as  our 
fathers  did  a  few  generations  ago  ?  "  It  is  my  impres- 
sion," writes  Dr.  R.  W.  Dale,*  "  that  both  religious 
people  and  those  who  do  not  profess  to  be  religious 
must  be  conscious  that  God's  Forgiveness,  if  they  ever 
think  of  it  at  all,  does  not  create  any  deep  and  strong 
emotion.  .  .  .  The  difference  between  the  way  in  which 
we  think  of  the  Divine  Forgiveness  and  the  way  in 
which  it  was  thought  of  by  David  and  Isaiah,  by  Christ 
Himself,  by  Peter,  Paul,  and  John ;  by  the  saints  of  all 
Christian  Churches  in  past  times,  both  in  the  East  and 
in  the  West ;  ...  by  the  leaders  of  the  EvangeHcal 
Revival  in  the  last  century — the  difi'erence,  I  say, 
between  the  way  in  which  the  Forgiveness  of  sins  was 
thought  of  by  them,  and  the  way  in  which  we  think 
of  it,  is  very  startling.  The  difference  is  so  great,  it 
affects  so  seriously  the  whole  system  of  the  religious 
thought  and  life,  that  we  may  be  said  to  have  invented 
a  new  religion.  .  .  .  The  difference  between  our  religion 
and  the  religion  of  other  times  is  this — that  we  do  not 
believe  that  God  has  any  strong  resentment  against  sin 
or  against  those  who  are  guilty  of  sin.  And  since  His 
resentment  has  gone.  His  mercy  has  gone  with  it.     We 

*  See  The  Evangelical  Revival,  and  other  Sertnons,  pp.  149-170,  on 
•'  The  Forgiveness  of  Sins." 


i.  6^-i2a.l         THE  BESTOWMENT   OF  GRACE.  39 


have  not  a  God  who  is  more  merciful  than  the  God  of 
our  fathers,  but  a  God  who  is  less  righteous  ;  and  a 
God  who  is  not  righteous,  a  God  who  does  not  glow 
with  fiery  indignation  against  sin,  is  no  God  at  all." 

These  are  solemn   words,  to    be    deeply  pondered. 

They  come  from  one  of  the  most  sagacious  observers 

and  justly  revered  teachers  of  our  time.    We  have  made 

a  real  advance  in  breadth  and  human  sympathy  ;  and 

there  has  been  throughout  our  Churches  a  genuine  and 

much  needed  awakening  of  philanthropic  activity.     But 

if  we  are  departing  from  the  living  God,  what  will  this 

avail  us  ?     If  ''  the  redemption  through  Christ's  blood, 

the  forgiveness  of  our  trespasses,"  is  no  longer  to  us  the 

momentous  and  glorious  fact  that  it  was  to  the  apostles, 

then  it  is  time  to  ask  whether  our  God  is  in  truth  the 

same  as  theirs,  whether  He  is  still  the  God  and  Father 

of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ— whether  we  are  not,  haply, 

fabricating    for  ourselves  another  gospel.     Without   a 

piercing  sense  of  the  shame  and  ruin  involved  in  human 

sin,  we  shall  not  put  its  remission  where  St  Paul  does, 

at  the  foundation  of  God's  benefits  to  men.     Without 

this  sentiment,  we  can  only  wonder  at  the  passionate 

gratitude  with  which   he  receives    the  atonement   and 

measures  by  its  completeness  the  riches  of  God's  grace. 

II.  Along  with    this    chief   blessing  of   forgiveness, 

there  came  another  to  the  apostolic  Church.     With  the 

heart  the  mind,  with  the  conscience  the  intellect  was 

quickened   and    endowed:    "which   [grace]    He    shed 

abundantly  upon  us  in  all  wisdom  and  intelligence^ 

This  sequel  to  verse  7  is  somewhat  of  a  surprise. 
The  reader  is  apt  to  slur  over  verse  8,  half  sensible  of 
some  jar  and  incongruity  between  it  and  the  context. 
It  scarcely  occurs  to  us  to  associate  wisdom  and  good 
sense  with  the  pardon  of  sin,  as  kindred  bestowments 


40  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  the  gospel.  Minds  of  the  evangehcal  order  are  often 
supposed,  indeed,  to  be  wanting  in  intellectual  excel- 
lencies and  indifferent  to  their  value.  Is  it  not  true 
that  ^'  not  many  wise  after  the  flesh  were  called  "  ?  Do 
we  not  glory  above  everything  in  preaching  a  "  simple 
gospel "  ? 

But  there  is  another  side  to  all  this.  "  Christ 
was  made  of  God  unto  us  wisdom^  This  attribute 
the  apostle  even  sets  first  when  he  writes  to  the 
wisdom-seeking  Greeks,  mocked  by  their  worn-out  and 
confused  philosophies  (i  Cor.  i.  30).  To  a  close 
observer  of  the  primitive  Christian  societies  few  things 
must  have  been  more  noticeable  than  the  powerful 
mental  stimulus  imparted  by  the  new  faith.  These 
epistles  are  a  witness  to  the  fact.  That  such  letters 
could  be  addressed  to  communities  gathered  mainly 
from  the  lower  ranks  of  society — consisting  of  slaves, 
common  artizans,  poor  women — shows  that  the  moral 
regeneration  effected  in  St  Paul's  converts  was  accom- 
panied by  an  extraordinary  excitement  and  activity  of 
thought.  In  this  the  apostle  recognised  the  work  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  a  mark  of  God's  special  favour  and 
blessing.  ^'  I  give  thanks  always  for  you,"  he  writes 
to  the  Corinthians,  "  for  the  grace  of  God  that  was 
given  you  in  Christ  Jesus,  that  in  everything  you  were 
enriched  by  Him,  in  all  word  and  all  knowledge." 
The  leaders  of  the  apostolic  Church  were  the  pro- 
foundest  thinkers  of  their  day ;  though  at  the  time  the 
world  held  them  for  babblers,  because  their  dialect 
was  not  of  its  schools.  They  drew  from  stores  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge  hidden  in  Christ,  which  none 
of  the  princes  of  this  world  knew. 

Of  such  wisdom  our  epistle  is  full,  and  God  *'  has 
made  it  to  abound"  to  the  readers  in  these  inspired 


i.  6b-i2a.]         THE  BESTOWMENT  OF  GRACE.  41 

pages.  Paul's  *^  understanding  in  the  mystery  of 
Christ"  was  always  deepening.  In  his  lonely  prison 
musings  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Divine  counsels 
are  disclosed  to  him  as  never  before.  He  sees  the 
course  of  the  ages  and  the  universe  of  being  illuminated 
by  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ.  And  what 
he  sees,  all  men  are  to  see  through  him  (iii.  9). 
Blessed  be  God  who  has  given  to  His  Church  through 
His  apostles,  and  through  the  great  Christian  teachers 
of  every  age,  His  precious  gifts  of  wisdom  and 
prudence,  and  made  His  grace  richly  to  overflow  from 
the  heart  into  the  mind  and  understanding  of  men  ! 

This  intellectual  gift  is  twofold  :  phronesis  as  well 
as  Sophia, — the  bestowment  not  only  of  deep  spiritual 
thought,  but  of  moral  sagacity,  good  sense  and  thought- 
fulness.  This  is  a  choice  charism — a  mercy  of  the 
Lord.  For  want  of  it  how  sadly  is  the  fruit  of  other 
graces  spoilt  and  wasted.  How  brightly  it  shines  in 
St  Paul  himself !  What  luminous  and  wholesome 
views  of  life,  what  a  fund  of  practical  sense  there  is 
in  the  teaching  of  this  letter. 

St  Paul  rejoices  in  these  gifts  of  the  understand- 
ing and  claims  them  for  the  Church,  having  in  his 
view  the  false  knowledge,  the  "  philosophy  and  vain 
deceit "  that  was  making  its  appearance  in  the  Asian 
Churches  (Col.  ii.  4,  8,  etc.).  Our  safeguard  against 
intellectual  perils  lies  not  in  ignorance,  but  in  deeper 
heart-knowledge.  When  the  grace  that  bestows  re- 
demption through  Christ's  blood  adds  its  concomitant 
blessing  of  enlightenment,  when  it  elevates  the  mind 
as  it  cleanses  the  heart,  and  abounds  to  us  in  all  wisdom 
and  prudence,  the  winds  of  doctrine  and  the  waves  of 
speculation  blow  and  beat  in  vain  ;  they  can  but  bring 
health  to  a  Church  thus  established  in  its  faith. 


42  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

Verses  9  and  10  describe  the  object  of  this  new 
knowledge.  They  state  the  doctrine  which  gave  this 
powerful  mental  impulse  to  the  apostolic  Church,  dis- 
closing to  it  a  vast  field  of  view,  and  supplying  the 
most  fertile  and  vigorous  principles  of  moral  wisdom. 
This  impulse  lay  in  the  revelation  of  God's  purpose 
to  reconstitute  the  universe  in  Christ.  The  declaration 
of  "the  mystery  of  His  will"  comes  in  at  this  point 
episodically,  and  by  the  way;  and  we  reserve  it  for 
consideration  to  the  end  of  the  present  Chapter. 

But  let  us  observe  here  that  our  wisdom  and  prudence 
lie  in  the  knowledge  of  God's  will.  Truth  is  not  to 
be  found  in  any  system  of  logical  notions,  in  schemes 
and  syntheses  of  the  laws  of  nature  or  of  thought. 
The  human  mind  can  never  rest  for  long  in  abstrac- 
tions. It  will  not  accept  for  its  basis  of  thought  that 
which  is  less  real  and  positive  than  itself.  By  its 
rational  instincts  it  is  compelled  to  seek  a  Reason  and 
a  Conscience  at  the  centre  of  things, — a  living  God. 
It  craves  to  know  the  mystery  of  His  will. 

III.  Verse  11  fills  up  the  measure  of  the  bestowment 
of  grace  on  sinful  men.  The  present  anticipates  the 
future  ;  faith  and  love  are  lifted  to  a  glorious  hope. 
"In  whom  also — i.e.^  in  Christ — we  received  our  heritage^ 
predestinated  [to  it],  according  to  His  purpose  who 
works  all  things  according  to  the  counsel  of  His  will." 

Following  Meyer  and  other  great  interpreters,  we 
prefer  in  this  passage  the  rendering  of  the  English 
Authorized  Version  {jve  obtained  an  inheritance)  to  that 
of  the  Revised  {we  were  made  a  heritage).'*'     *'  Fore- 

*  Bishop  Ellicott,  who  advocates  the  latter  rendering,  objects  to 
Meyers  interpretation  that  it  is  *'  doubtful  in  point  of  usage."  Face 
tanti  viri,  we  must  retort  this  objection  upon  the  new  translation.  To 
obtain  by  lot,  to  have  {a  thing)  allotted  to  one,  is  the  meaning  regularly 


i.6b-i2a.]         THE  BESTOWMENT  OF  GRACE.  43 

ordained  "  carries  us  back  to  verse  5 — to  the  phrase 
''foreordained  to  sonship."  The  beHever  cannot  be 
predestinated  to  sonship  without  being  predestinated 
to  an  inheritance.*  ''  If  children,  then  heirs  "  (Rom. 
viii.  17).  But  while  in  the  parallel  passage  we  are 
designated  heirs  with  Christ,  we  appear  in  this  place, 
according  to  the  tenor  of  the  context,  as  heirs  in  Him. 
Christ  is  Himself  the  believer's  wealth,  both  in  posses- 
sion and  hope  :  all  his  desire  is  to  gain  Christ  (Phil.  iii. 
8).  The  apostle  gives  thanks  here  in  the  same  strain  as 
in  Colossians  i.  12-14,  "to  the  Father  who  qualified  us 
[by  making  us  His  sons]  to  partake  of  the  inheritance 
of  the  saints  in  the  light."  In  that  thanksgiving  we 
observe  the  same  connexion  as  in  this  between  our 
forgiveness  (ver.  7)  and  our  enfeoffment,  or  investment 
with  the  forfeited  rights  of  sons  of  God  (vv.  5,  ii).t 

The  heritage  of  the  saints  in  Christ  is  theirs  already, 
by  actual  investiture.  The  Hberty  of  sons  of  God, 
access  to  the  Father,  the  treasures  of  Christ's  wisdom 
and  knowledge,  the  sanctifying  Spirit  and  the  moral 
strength  and  joy  that  He  imparts,  these  form  a  rich 
estate  of  which  ancient  saints  had  but  foretastes  and 
promises.     In  the  all-controlling  "  counsel  of  His  will," 


given  to  Kkrjpovcrdai  in  the  classical  dictionaries  ;  and  in  O.T.  usage  the 
lot  {kKtipos)  becomes  the  inheritance  (the  thing  allotted).  The  verb  is 
repeatedly  used  by  Philo  with  the  meaning  to  obtain,  or  receive  an 
inheritance  ;  whereas  there  seems  to  be  no  real  parallel  to  the  other 
rendering.  Ic  s  true  that  KXrjpovadaL  in  the  sense  of  the  A.V.  requires 
an  object ;  but  hat  is  virtually  supplied  by  e?/  (^  ;  "  we  had  our  inherit- 
ance allotted  in  Christ."  Comp.  Col.  i.  12,  '*  the  lot  of  the  saints  in 
the  light,'"  which  signifies  not  the  locality,  but  the  nature  and  content 
of  the  saints'  heritage. 

*  See  Gal.  iii.  22— iv.  7  ;  and  Chapters  XV. — XVII.  in  the  Expositor's 
Bible  (Galatians),  on  Sonship  and  Inheritance  in  St  Paul. 

f  Compare  Acts  xxvi.  18,  which  also  speaks  to  this  association  of 
ideas  in  St  Paul's  mind,  with  vers.  4,  5,  7,  and  11  in  this  chapter. 


44  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

God  wrought  throughout  the  course  of  history  to  convey 
this  heritage  to  us.  We  are  children  of  '^  the  fulness 
of  the  times/'  heirs  of  all  the  past.  For  us  God  has 
been  working  from  eternity.  On  us  the  ends  of  the 
world  have  come.  Thus  from  the  summit  of  our 
exaltation  in  Christ  the  apostle  looks  backward  to  the 
beginning  of  Divine  history. 

From  the  same  point  his  gaze  sweeps  onward  to  the 
end.  God's  purpose  embraces  the  ages  to  come  with 
those  that  are  past.  His  working  will  not  cease  till 
the  whole  counsel  is  fulfilled.  What  we  have  of  our 
inheritance,  though  rich  and  real,  holds  in  it  the  promise 
of  infinitely  more  ;  and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  "  earnest 
of  our  inheritance  "  (ver.  14).  God  intends  '^  that  we 
should  be  to  the  praise  of  His  glory."  As  things  are, 
His  glory  is  but  obscurely  visible  in  His  saints.  "  It 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be," — and  it  will 
not  appear  until  the  unveiling  of  the  sons  of  God  (Rom. 
viii.  18-25).  One  day  God's  glory  in  us  will  burst 
forth  in  its  splendour.  All  beholders  in  heaven  and 
earth  will  then  sing  to  the  praise  of  His  glory ^  when  it 
is  seen  in  His  redeemed  and  godlike  sons. 

Verses  9  and  10  (which  He  purposed  .  .  .  upon  the 
earth)  are,  as  we  have  said,  a  parenthesis  or  episode 
in  the  passage  just  reviewed.  Neither  in  structure  nor 
in  sense  would  the  paragraph  be  defective,  had  this 
clause  been  wanting.  With  the  "  in  Him  "  repeated 
at  the  end  of  verse  10,  St  Paul  resumes  the  main 
current  of  his  thanksgiving,  arrested  for  a  moment 
while  he  dwells  on  ^'  the  mystery  of  God's  will." 

This  last  expression  (ver.  9),  notwithstanding  what  he 
has  said  in  verses  4  and  5,  still  needs  elucidation.  He 
will  pause  for  an  instant  to  set  forth  once  more  the 


i.  6b-i2a.]        THE  BESTOWMENT  OF  GRACE.  45 

eternal  purpose,  to  the  knowledge  of  which  the  Church 
is  now  admitted.  The  communication  of  this  mystery 
is,  he  says,  "  according  to  God's  good  pleasure  which 
He  purposed  in  Christ  [comp.  ver.  4],  for  a  dispen- 
sation of  the  fulness  of  the  times,  intending  to  gather 
up  again  all  things  in  the  Christ — the  things  in  the 
heavens,  and  the  things  upon  the  earth." 

God  formed  in  Christ  the  purpose,  by  the  dispensa- 
tion of  His  grace,  in  due  time  to  re-unite  the  universe 
under  the  headship  of  Christ.  This  mysterious  design, 
hitherto  kept  secret.  He  has  "  made  known  unto  us." 
Its  manifestation  imparts  a  wisdom  that  surpasses  all 
the  wisdom  of  former  ages.*  Such  is  the  drift  of  this 
profound  deliverance. 

The  first  clause  of  verse  10  supplies  a  datum  for 
its  interpretation.  The  fulness  of  the  times,  in  St  Paul's 
dialect,  can  only  be  the  time  of  Christ.f  The  dispensa- 
tion which  God  designed  of  old  is  that  in  which  the 
apostle  himself  is  now  engaged;  J  it  is  the  dispensation, 
or  administration  {economy),  of  the  grace  and  truth 
that  came  by  Jesus  Christ,  whether  God  be  conceived 
as  Himself  the  Dispenser,  or  through  the  stewards  of 
His  mysteries.  The  Messianic  end  was  to  Paul's 
Jewish  thought  the  denouement  of  antecedent  history. 
How  long  this  age  would  continue,  into  what  epochs 
it  might  unfold  itself,  he  knew  not ;  but  for  him  the 
fulness  of  the  times  had  arrived.  The  Son  of  God  was 
come  ;  the  kingdom  of  God  was  amongst  men.     It  was 


*  Vv.  8,  9,  ch.  iii.  4,  5  ;  comp.  Col.  ii.  2,  3  ;  i  Cor.  ii.  6-9. 

f  "  The  fulness  of  the  time,"  Gal.  iv.  4 ;  "  in  due  season,"  Rom.  v.  6 ; 
"  in  its  own  times,"  I  Tim.  ii.  6.  These  are  all  synonymous  expressions 
for  the  Messianic  era.     Comp.  Heb.  i.  2,  ix.  26 ;  i  Pet.  i.  20. 

X  Ch.  iii.  8,  9 ;  Col.  i.  25  ;  i  Cor.  iv.  i ;  i  Tim.  i.  4,  i.  7 ;  2  Tim.  i. 
9-11 ;  and  especially  Rom.  xvi.  25,  26. 


46  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

the  beginning  of  the  end.  It  is  a  mistake  to  relegate 
this  text  to  the  dim  and  distant  future,  to  some  far-off 
consummation.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  the  Christian 
reconstruction  of  things,  and  are  taking  part  in  it.  The 
decisive  epoch  fell  when  ^'  God  sent  forth  His  Son." 
All  that  has  followed,  and  will  follow,  is  the  result  of 
this  mission.  Christ  is  all  things,  and  in  all ;  and  we 
are  already  complete  in  Him. 

What,  then,  signifies  this  gather ing-into- one  or  sum- 
ming-up of  all  things  in  the  Christ  ?  Our  recapitulate 
is  the  nearest  equivalent  of  the  Greek  verb,  in  its  etymo- 
logical sense.  In  Romans  xiii.  8,  9  the  same  word  is 
used,  where  the  several  commands  of  the  second  table 
of  the  Decalogue  are  said  to  be  "  comprehended  in  this 
word,  namely.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thy- 
self." This  summing  up  is  not  a  generalization  or 
compendious  statement  of  the  commands  of  God  ;  it 
signifies  their  reduction  to  a  fundamental  principle. 
They  are  unified  by  the  discovery  of  a  law  that  under- 
lies them  all.  And  while  thus  theoretically  explained, 
they  are  made  practically  effective  :  ^'  For  love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  the  law." 

Similarly,  St  Paul  finds  in  Christ  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  creation.  For  those  who  think  with  him, 
God  has  by  the  Christian  revelation  already  brought  all 
things  to  their  unity.  This  summing  up — the  Christian 
inventory  and  recapitulation  of  the  universe — the 
apostle  has  formally  stated  in  Colossians  i.  15-20: 
"  Christ  is  God's  image  and  creation's  firstborn.  In 
Him,  through  Him,  for  Him  all  things  were  made.  He 
is  before  them  all;  and  in  Him  they  have  their  basis 
and  uniting  bond.  He  is  equally  the  Head  of  the 
Church  and  the  new  creation,  the  firstborn  out  of  the 
dead,  that   He   might   hold   a   universal   presidence — 


i.  6b-i2a.']         THE  BESTOIVMENT  OF  GRACE.  47 

charged  with  all  the  fulness,  so  that  in  Him  is  the 
ground  of  the  reconciliation  no  less  than  of  the  creation 
of  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth."  What  can  we 
desire  more  comprehensive  than  this  ?  It  is  the  theory 
and  programme  of  the  world  revealed  to  God's  holy 
apostles  and  prophets. 

The  "  gathering  into  one "  of  this  text  includes  the 
^*  reconciliation "  of  Colossians  i.  20,  and  more.  It 
signifies,  beside  the  removal  of  the  enmities  which  are 
the  effect  of  sin  (ii.  14-16),  the  subjection  of  all  powers 
in  heaven  and  earth  to  the  rule  of  Christ  (vv.  21,  22),* 
the  enlightenment  of  the  angelic  magnates  as  to  God's 
deahngs  with  men  (iii.  9,  10), — in  fine,  the  rectification 
and  adjustment  of  the  several  parts  of  the  great  whole 
of  things,  bringing  them  into  full  accord  with  each 
other  and  with  their  Creator's  will.  What  St  Paul 
looks  forward  to  is,  in  a  word,  the  organization  of  the 
universe  upon  a  Christian  basis.  This  reconstitution 
of  things  is  provided  for  and  is  being  effected  "in  the 
Christ."  He  is  the  rallying  point  of  the  forces  of  peace 
and  blessing.  The  organic  principle,  the  organizing 
Head,  the  creative  nucleus  of  the  new  creation  is 
there.  The  potent  germ  of  life  eternal  has  been  intro- 
duced into  the  world's  chaos  ;  and  its  victory  over  the 
elements  of  disorder  and  death  is  assured. 

Observe  that  the  apostle  says  "  in  the  ChrisC  f  He 
is  not  speaking  of  Christ  in  the  abstract,  considered  in 
His  own  Person  or  as  He  dwells  in  heaven,  but  in  His 

*  Comp.  ch.  V.  5;  I  Cor.  xv.  24-28;  Phil.  ii.  9-12;  Heb.  ii.  8;  Rev. 
i.  5,  xi.  15,  xvii.  14  ;  Dan.  vii.  13,  14. 

t  One  wonders  that  our  Revisers,  so  attentive  to  all  points  of  Greek 
idiom,  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  discriminate  between  Christ  and 
the  Christ  in  such  passages  as  this.  In  Ephesians  this  distinction  is 
especially  conspicuous  and  significant.  See  vv.  12,  20,  iii.  17,  iv.  20, 
V.  23 ;  similarly  in  i  Cor.  xv.  22  ;  Rom.  xv.  3,  etc. 


48  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

relations  to  men  and  to  time.  The  Christ  manifest  in 
Jesus  (iv.  20,  2i),  the  Christ  of  prophets  and  apostles, 
the  Messiah  of  the  ages,  the  Husband  of  the  Church 
(v.  23),  is  the  author  and  finisher  of  this  grand  restora- 
tion. 

Christ's  work  is  essentially  a  work  of  restoration. 
We  must  insist,  with  Meyer,  upon  the  significance  of 
the  Greek  preposition  in  Paul's  compound  verb  (ana-, 
equal  to  re-  in  restore  or  resume).  The  Christ  is  not 
simply  the  climax  of  the  past — the  Son  of  man  and  the 
recapitulation  of  humanity,  as  man  is  of  the  creatures 
below  him,  summing  up  human  development  and  lifting 
it  to  a  higher  stage — though  He  is  all  that.  Christ 
rehabilitates  man  and  the  world.  He  re-asserts  the 
original  ground  of  our  being,  as  that  exists  in  God. 
He  carries  us  and  the  world  forward  out  of  sin  and 
death,  by  carrying  us  back  to  God's  ideal.  The  new 
world  is  the  old  world  repaired,  and  in  its  reparation 
infinitely  enhanced — rich  in  the  memories  of  redemption, 
in  the  fruit  of  penitence  and  the  discipline  of  suffering, 
in  the  lessons  of  the  cross. 

All  things  in  heaven  and  earth  it  was  God's  good 
pleasure  in  the  Christ  to  gather  again  into  one.  Is  this 
a  general  assertion  concerning  the  universe  as  a  whole, 
or  may  we  apply  it  with  distributive  exactness  to  each 
particular  thing  ?  Is  there  to  be,  as  we  fain  would 
hope,  no  single  exception  to  the  "  all  things  " — no 
wanderer  lost,  no  exile  finally  shut  out  from  the  Holy 
City  and  the  tree  of  life?  Are  all  evil  men  and  demons, 
willing  or  against  their  will,  to  be  embraced  somehow 
and  at  last — at  last — in  the  universal  peace  of  God  ? 

It  is  impossible  that  the  first  readers  should  have 
so  construed  Paul's  words  (comp.  v.  5).  He  has  not 
forgotten  the  "  unquenchable  fire,"  the  *'  eternal  punish- 


i.  6l?-i2a.]         THE  BESTOWMENT  OF  GRACE.  49 

ment "  ;  nor  dare  we.  "  If  anything  is  certain  about 
the  teaching  of  Christ  and  His  apostles,  it  is  that  they 
warned  men  not  to  reject  the  Divine  mercy  and  so  to 
incur  irrevocable  exile  from  God's  presence  and  joy. 
They  assumed  that  some  men  would  be  guilty  of  this 
supreme  crime,  and  would  be  doomed  to  this  supreme 
woe  "  (Dale).  There  is  nothing  in  this  text  to  warrant 
any  man  in  presuming  on  the  mercy  or  the  sovereignty 
of  God,  nothing  to  justify  us  in  supposing  that,  deliber- 
ately refusing  to  be  reconciled  to  God  in  Christ,  we 
shall  yet  be  reconciled  in  the  end,  despite  ourselves. 
St  Paul  assures  us  that  God  and  the  world  will 
be  reunited,  and  that  peace  will  reign  through  all 
realms  and  orders  of  existence.  He  does  not,  and  he 
could  not  say  that  none  will  exclude  themselves  from 
the  eternal  kingdom.  Making  men  free,  God  has  made 
it  possible  for  them  to  contradict  Him,  so  long  as  they 
have  any  being.  The  apostle's  words  have  their  note 
of  warning,  along  with  their  boundless  promise.  There 
is  no  place  in  the  future  order  of  things  for  aught  that 
is  out  of  Christ.  There  is  no  standing-ground  any- 
where for  the  unclean  and  the  unjust,  for  the  irrecon- 
cilable rebel  against  God.  "The  Son  of  man  shall 
send  forth  His  angels,  and  they  shall  gather  out  of 
His  kingdom  all  things  that  offend  and  them  that  do 
iniquity." 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION. 

"  [That  we  might  be  to  the  praise  of  His  glory  :] 
We  who   had   before   hoped  in   the  Christ,    in   whom   also   ye  have 
hoped^ 
Since  ye  heard  the  word  of  truth,  the  gospel  of  your  salvation, — 
In   whom  indeed,  when  ye  believed,   ye  were  sealed  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  of  the  promise. 
Which  is  the  earnest  of  our  inheritance,  till  the  redemption  of  God's 
possession, — 

To  the  praise  of  His  glory." 

Eph.  i.  12-14. 

WHEN  the  apostle  reaches  the  '^  heritage  "  con- 
ferred upon  us  in  Christ  (ver.  11),  he  is  on 
the  boundary  between  the  present  and  the  future. 
Into  that  future  he  now  presses  forward,  gathering 
from  it  his  crowning  tribute  "  to  the  praise  of  God's 
glory."  We  shall  find,  however,  that  this  heritage 
assumes  a  twofold  character,  as  did  the  conception 
of  the  inheritance  of  the  Lord  in  the  Old  Testament. 
If  the  saints  have  their  heritage  in  Christ,  partly 
possessed  and  partly  to  be  possessed,  God  has  likewise, 
and  antecedently,  His  inheritance  in  them,  of  which  He 
too  has  still  to  take  full  possession.* 

*  Exod.  xix.  3-6 ;  Deut.  iv.  20,  21  ;  i  Kings  viii.  51,  53 ;  Ps.  Ixxviii. 
71,  etc.  With  the  above  comp.  Gen.  xv.  8 ;  Numb,  xviii.  20 ;  Jos.  xiii.  33 ; 
Ps.  xvi.  5. 

50 


i.  12-14.  THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION.  51 

Opening  upon  this  final  prospect,  St  Paul  touches 
on  a  subject  of  supreme  interest  to  himself  and  that 
could  not  fail  to  find  a  place  in  his  great  Act  of  Praise 
— viz.,  tJie  admission  of  the  Gentiles  to  the  spiritual 
property  of  Israel.  The  thought  of  the  heirship  of 
believers  and  of  God's  previous  counsel  respecting  it 
(ver.  11),  brought  before  his  mind  the  distinction  be- 
tween Jew  and  Gentile  and  the  part  assigned  to  each 
in  the  Divine  plan.  Hence  he  varies  the  general  refrain 
in  verse  12  by  saying  significantly,  ''  that  we  might 
be  to  the  praise  of  His  glory."  This  emphatic  we  is 
explained  in  the  opening  phrase  of  the  last  strophe  : 
"that  have  beforehand  fixed  our  hope  on  the  Christ," — 
the  heirs  of  Israel's  hope  in  ''  Him  of  v^hom  Moses 
in  the  law  and  the  prophets  did  write."  With  this 
"  we  "  of  Paul's  Jewish  consciousness  the  "  ye  also  "  of 
verse  13  is  set  in  contrast  by  his  vocation  as  Gentile 
apostle.  This  second  pronoun,  by  one  of  Paul's 
abrupt  turns  of  thought,  is  deprived  of  its  predicating 
verb  ;  but  that  is  given  already  by  the  *'  hoped "  of 
the  last  clause.  '*  The  Messianic  hope,  Israel's  ancient 
heirloom,  in  its  fulfilment  is  yours  as  much  as  ours." 

This  hope  of  Israel  pointed  Israelite  and  Gentile 
believer  alike  to  the  completion  of  the  Messianic  era, 
when  the  mystery  of  God  should  be  finished  and  His 
universe  redeemed  from  the  bondage  of  corruption 
(vv.  10,  14).  By  the  "one  hope"  of  the  Christian 
calling  the  Church  is  now  made  one.  From  this  point 
of  view  the  apostle  in  chapter  ii.  12  describes  the 
condition  in  which  the  gospel  found  his  Gentile  readers 
as  that  of  men  cut  off  from  Christ,  strangers  to  the 
covenants  of  promise, — in  a  word,  "having  no  hope"; 
while  he  and  his  Jewish  fellow-believers  held  the 
priority  that  belonged  to  those  whose  are  the  promises. 


52  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  apostle  stands  precisely  at  the  juncture  where 
the  wild  shoot  of  nature  is  grafted  into  the  good  oHve 
tree.  A  generation  later  no  one  would  have  thought 
of  writing  of  "  the  Christ  in  whom  you  (Gentiles)  also 
have  found  hope  "  ;  for  then  Christ  was  the  estabhshed 
possession  of  the  Gentile  Church. 

To  these  Christless  heathen  Christ  and  His  hope 
came,  when  they  *'  heard  the  word  of  truth,  the  gospel 
of  their  salvation."  A  great  light  had  sprung  up  for 
them  that  sat  in  darkness ;  the  good  tidings  of  salvation 
came  to  the  lost  and  despairing.  ^'  To  the  Gentiles/' 
St  Paul  declared,  addressing  the  obstinate  Jews  of 
Rome,  "  this  salvation  of  God  was  sent  :  they  indeed 
will  hear  it "  (Acts  xxviii.  28).  Such  was  his  experi- 
ence in  Ephesus  and  all  the  Gentile  cities.  There  were 
hearing  ears  and  open  hearts,  souls  longing  for  the 
word  of  truth  and  the  message  of  hope.  The  trespass 
of  Israel  had  become  the  riches  of  the  world.  For  this 
on  his  readers'  behalf  he  gives  joyful  thanks, — that  his 
message  proved  to  be  ^'  the  gospel  of  your  salvation." 

Salvation,  as  St  Paul  understands  it,  includes  our 
uttermost  deliverance,  the  end  of  death  itself  (i  Cor. 
XV.  26).  He  renders  praise  to  God  for  that  He  has 
sealed  Gentile  equally  with  Jewish  believers  with  the 
stamp  of  His  Spirit,  which  makes  them  His  property 
and  gives  assurance  of  absolute  redemption. 

There  are  three  things  to  be  considered  in  this 
statement :  the  seal  itself,  the  conditions  upon  which, 
and  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  affixed. 

I.  A  seal  is  a  token  of  proprietorship  put  by  the  owner 
upon  his  property  ;  *  or  it  is  the  authentication  of  some 

*  Ch.  iv.  30.  The  "seal"  of  2  Tim.  ii.  19  has  both  the  first  and 
third  of  these  meanings. 


i.  12-14.]  THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION.  53 


Statement  or  engagement,  the  official  stamp  that  gives 
it  validity  ;  *  or  it  is  the  pledge  of  inviolability  guarding 
a  treasure  from  profane  or  injurious  hands. f  There  is 
the  protecting  seal,  the  ratifying  seal,  and  the  proprie- 
tary seal.  The  same  seal  may  serve  each  or  all  of 
these  purposes.  Here  the  thought  of  possession  pre- 
dominates (comp.  ver.  4) ;  but  it  can  scarcely  be 
separated  from  the  other  two.  The  witness  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  marks  men  out  as  God's  purchased  right  in 
Christ  (i  Cor.  vi.  19,  20).  In  that  very  fact  it  guards 
them  from  evil  and  wrong  (iv.  30),  while  it  ratifies 
their  Divine  sonship  (Gal.  iv.  6)  and  guarantees  their 
personal  share  in  the  promises  of  God  (2  Cor.  i.  20-22). 
It  is  a  bond  betw^een  God  and  men ;  a  sign  at  once 
of  what  we  are  and  shall  be  to  God,  and  of  what  He 
is  and  will  be  to  us.  It  secures,  and  it  assures.  It 
stamps  us  for  God's  possession,  and  His  kingdom  and 
glory  as  our  possession. 

This  seal  is  constituted  by  the  Holy  Spirit  of  the  pro- 
mise^— in  contrast  with  the  material  seal,  "  in  the  flesh, 
wrought  by  hand,"  \  which  marked  the  children  of  the 
Old  Covenant  from  Abraham  downwards,  previously 
to  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  (Gal.  iii.  14).  We 
bear  it  in  the  inmost  part  of  our  nature,  where  we  are 
nearest  to  God  :  ''  The  Spirit  witnesseth  to  our  spirit." 
^*  The  IsraeHtes  also  were  sealed,  but  by  circumcision, 
like  cattle  and  irrational  animals.  We  were  sealed  by 
the  Spirit,  as  sons  "  (Chrysostom).  The  stamp  of  God 
is  on  the  consciousness  of  His  children.  ''We  know 
that  Christ  abides  in  us,"  writes  St  John,  "  from  the 
Spirit   which   He    gave   us"   (i    Ep.    iii.    24).     Under 

*  Rom.  iv.  II ;  I  Cor.  ix.  2  ;  John  iii.  33,  vi.  27. 

t  Matt,  xxvii.  66;  Rev.  v.  i,  etc. 

X  Ch.  ii.  II ;  comp.  Rom.  i.  28,  29;  Gal.  v,  5,  6;  Phil.  iii.  2,  3. 


54  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

this  seal  is  conveyed  the  sum  of  blessing  comprised 
in  our  salvation.  Jesus  promised,  "  Your  heavenly 
Father  will  give  His  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask" 
(Luke  xi.  13),  as  if  there  were  nothing  else  to  ask. 
Giving  us  this,  God  gives  everything,  gives  us  Himself ! 
In  substance  or  anticipation,  this  one  bestowment  con- 
tains all  good  things  of  God. 

The  apostle  writes  "the  Spirit  of  the  promise,  the 
Holy  [Spirit],"  with  emphasis  on  the  word  of  quality  ; 
for  the  testifying  power  of  the  seal  hes  in  its  character. 
^'  Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit ;  but  try  the  spirits, 
whether  they  are  of  God"  (i  John  iv.  i).  There  are 
false  prophets,  deceiving  and  deceived  ;  there  are 
promptings  from  "  the  spirit  that  works  in  the  sons 
of  disobedience,"  diabolical  inspirations,  so  plausible 
and  astonishing  that  they  may  deceive  the  very  elect. 
It  is  a  most  perilous  error  to  identify  the  supernatural 
with  the  Divine,  to  suppose  mere  miracles  and  com- 
munications from  the  invisible  sphere  a  sign  of  the 
working  of  God.  Antichrist  can  mimic  Christ  by 
his  "  lying  wonders  and  deceit  of  unrighteousness " 
(2  Thess.  ii.  8-12).  Jesus  never  appealed  to  the  power 
of  His  works  in  proof  of  His  mission,  apart  from  their 
ethical  quality.  God's  Spirit  works  after  His  kind,  and 
makes  ours  a  holy  spirit.  There  is  an  objective  and  sub- 
jective witness — the  obverse  and  reverse  of  the  medal 
(2  Tim.  ii.  19).  To  be  sealed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  is, 
in  St  Paul's  dialect,  the  same  thing  as  to  be  sanctified ; 
only,  the  phrase  of  this  text  brings  out  graphically  the 
promissory  aspect  of  sanctification,  its  bearing  on  our 
final  redemption.* 

When    the    sealing   Spirit   is   called    the    Spirit    of 

*  Comp.  Rom.  viii.  9-1 1  ;  2  Cor.  v.  I-^. 


i.  12-14.]  THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION.  55 

prmnisej  does  the  expression  look  backward  or  forward  ? 
Is  the  apostle  thinking  of  the  past  promise  now  ful- 
filled, or  of  some  promise  still  to  be  fulfilled  ?  The 
former,  undoubtedly,  is  tfue.  The  promise  (the  article 
is  significant*)  is,  in  the  words  of  Christ,  ''the  promise 
of  the  Father."  On  the  day  of  Pentecost  St  Peter 
pointed  to  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  God's  seal 
upon  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  fulfilling  what  was 
promised  to  Israel  for  the  last  days.  When  this 
miraculous  effusion  was  repeated  in  the  household  of 
Cornelius,  the  Jewish  apostle  saw  its  immense  signifi- 
cance. He  asked,  ''Can  any  one  forbid  water  that 
these  should  be  baptized,  who  have  received  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  well  as  we  ?  "  (Acts  x.  47).  This  was  the  pre- 
dicted criterion  of  the  Messianic  times.  Now  it  was 
given,  and  with  an  abundance  beyond  hope, — poured 
outy  in  the  full  sense  of  Joel's  words,  upon  all  flesh. 

Now,  if  God  has  done  so  much — for  this  is  the 
implied  argument  of  verses  13,  14 — He  will  surely 
accomplish  the  rest.  The  attainment  of  past  hope  is 
the  warrant  of  present  hope.  He  who  gives  us  His 
own  Spirit,  will  give  us  the  fulness  of  eternal  life.  The 
earnest  implies  the  sum.  In  the  witness  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  there  is  for  the  Christian  man  the  power  of  an 
endless  life,  a  spring  of  courage  and  patience  that  can 
never  fail. 

II.  But  there  are  very  definite  conditions,  upon  which 
this  assurance  depends.  "  When  you  heard  the  word 
of  truth,  the  gospel  of  your  salvation  " — there  is  the 
outward  condition  :  "  when  you  believed  " — there  is 
the  inward  and  subjective  quahfication  for  the  affixing 
of  the  seal  of  God  to  the  heart. 

*  Acts  i.  4,  ii.  33,  39,  xiii.  32,  xxvi.  6;  Rom.  iv.  13-20;  Gal.  iii. 
14-29. 


56  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

How  characteristic  is  this  antithesis  of  hearing  and 
faith  !  *  St  Paul  dehghts  to  ring  the  changes  upon 
these  terms.  The  gospel  he  carried  about  with  him 
was  a  message  from  God  to  men,  the  good  news  about 
Jesus  Christ.  It  needs,  on  the  one  hand,  to  be  effec- 
tively uttered,  proclaimed  so  as  to  be  heard  with  the 
understanding  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be 
trustfully  received  and  obeyed.  Then  the  due  result 
follows.     There  is  salvation, — conscious,  full. 

If  they  are  to  believe  unto  salvation,  men  must  be 
made  to  heai'  the  word  of  truth.  Unless  the  good  news 
reaches  their  ears  and  their  heart,  it  is  no  good  news 
to  them.  "  How  shall  they  believe  in  Him  of  whom 
they  have  not  heard  ?  how  shall  they  hear  without 
a  preacher  ?  "  (Rom.  x.  14).  The  Hght  may  be  true, 
and  the  eyes  clear  and  open ;  but  there  is  no  vision 
till  both  meet,  till  the  illuminating  ray  falls  on  the 
sensitive  spot  and  touches  the  responsive  nerve.  How 
many  sit  in  darkness,  groping  and  wearying  for  the 
light,  ready  for  the  message  if  there  were  any  to  speak 
it  to  them  !  Great  would  Paul's  guilt  have  been,  if 
when  Christ  called  him  to  preach  to  the  heathen,  he  had 
refused  to  go,  if  he  had  withheld  the  gospel  of  salvation 
from  the  multitudes  waiting  to  receive  it  at  his  lips. 
Great  also  is  our  fault  and  blame,  and  heavy  the 
reproach  against  the  Church  to-day,  when  with  means 
in  her  hand  to  make  Christ  known  to  almost  the  whole 
world,  she  leaves  vast  numbers  of  men  within  her 
reach  in  ignorance  of  His  message.  She  is  not  the 
proprietor  of  the  Christian  truth  :  it  is  God's  gospel ; 
and  she  holds  it  as  God's  trustee  for  mankind, — that 
through  her  "the  message  might   be    fully  preached, 

*  See  Rom.  x.  14-18;  Gal.  iii.  2,  5;  Col.  i.  6,  23;  i  Thess.  ii.  13; 
2  Tim.  i.  13. 


i.  12-14.]  THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION.  57 

and  that  all  the  nations  might  hear"  (2  Tim.  iv.  17). 
She  has  St  Paul's  programme  in  hand  still  to  complete, 
and  loiters  over  it. 

The  nature  of  the  message  constitutes  our  duty  to 
proclaim  it.  It  is  "  the  word  of  truths  If  there  be 
any  doubt  upon  this,  if  our  certainty  of  the  Christian 
truth  is  shaken  and  we  can  no  longer  announce  it  with 
full  conviction,  our  zeal  for  its  propagation  naturally 
declines.  Scepticism  chills  and  kills  missionary  fervour, 
as  the  breath  of  the  frost  the  young  growth  of  spring. 
At  home  and  amongst  our  own  people  evangehstic 
agencies  are  supported  by  many  who  have  no  very 
decided  personal  faith,  from  secondary  motives, — with 
a  view  to  their  social  and  reformatory  benefits,  out  of 
philanthropic  feeling  and  love  to  "  the  brother  whom  we 
have  seen."  The  foreign  missions  of  the  Church,  hke 
the  work  of  the  Gentile  apostle^  gauge  her  real  estimate 
of  the  gospel  she  believes  and  the  Master  she  serves. 

But  if  we  have  no  sure  word  of  prophecy  to  speak, 
we  had  better  be  silent.  Men  are  not  saved  by  illu- 
sion or  speculation.  Christianity  did  not  begin  by 
offering  to  mankind  a  legend  for  a  gospel,  or  win 
the  ear  of  the  world  for  a  beautiful  romance.  When 
the  apostles  preached  Jesus  and  the  resurrection,  they 
declared  what  they  knew.  To  have  spoken  otherwise, 
to  have  uttered  cunningly  devised  fables  or  pious 
phantasies  or  conjectures  of  their  own,  would  have 
been,  in  their  view,  to  bear  false  witness  against  God. 
Before  the  hostile  scrutiny  of  their  fellow-men,  and  in 
prospect  of  the  awful  judgement  of  God,  they  testified 
the  facts  about  Jesus  Christ,  the  things  that  they  had 
"heard,  and  seen  with  their  eyes,  and  which  their 
hands  had  handled  concerning  the  word  of  life."  They 
were  as  sure  of  these  things  as  of  their  own  being. 


58  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


Standing  upon  this  ground  and  with  this  weapon  of 
truth  alone  in  their  hands,  they  denounced  "  the  wiles 
of  error "  and  the  "  craftiness  of  men  who  lie  in  wait 
to  deceive"  (iv.  14). 

And  they  could  always  speak  of  this  word  of  truth, 
addressing  whatsoever  circle  of  hearers  or  of  readers, 
as  **  the  good  news  of  your  salvation."  The  pronoun, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  emphatic.  The  glory  of  Paul's  apos- 
tolic mission  was  its  universalism.  His  message  was 
to  every  man  he  met.  His  latest  writings  glow  with 
delight  in  the  world-wide  destination  of  his  gospel.*  It 
was  his  consolation  that  the  Gentiles  in  multitudes 
received  the  Divine  message  to  which  his  countrymen 
closed  their  ears.  And  he  rejoiced  in  this  the  more, 
because  he  foresaw  that  ultimately  the  gospel  would 
return  to  its  native  home;  and  at  last  amid  ''  the  fulness 
of  the  Gentiles  all  Israel  would  be  saved"  (Rom. 
xi.  13-32).  At  present  Israel  was  not  prepared  to 
seek,  while  the  Gentiles  were  seeking  righteousness  by 
the  way  of  faith  (Rom.  ix.  30-33). 

For  it  is  upon  this  question  of  faith  that  the  whole 
issue  turns.  Hearing  is  much,  when  one  hears  the 
word  of  truth  and  news  of  salvation.  But  faith  is 
the  point  at  which  salvation  becomes  ours — no  longer 
a  possibility,  an  opportunity,  but  a  fact :  ^'  in  whom 
indeed,  when  you  believed,  you  were  sealed  with  the 
Holy  Spirit."  So  characteristic  is  this  act  of  the  new 
life  to  which  it  admits,  that  St  Paul  is  in  the  habit  of 
calling  Christians,  without  further  qualification,  simply 
believers  ("those  who  believe,"  or  "who  believed"). 
Faith  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  associated 
in  his  thoughts,  as  closely  as  Faith  and  Justification. 

*  I  Tim.  ii.  1-7,  iv.  10;  Tit.  ii.  11, 


i.  12-14.]  THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION.  59 

^^  Did  you  receive  the  Holy  Spirit  when  you  believed  ?  " 
was  the  question  he  put  to  the  Baptist's  disciples  whom 
he  found  at  Ephesus  on  first  arriving  there  (Acts  xix. 
2).  This  was  the  test  of  the  adequacy  of  their  faith. 
He  reminds  the  Galatians  that  they  "received  the 
Spirit  from  the  hearing  of  faith,"  and  tells  them  that 
in  this  way  the  blessing  and  the  promise  of  Abraham 
were  theirs  already  (Gal.  iii.  2,  7,  14).  Faith  in  the 
word  of  Christ  admits  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  who  is 
in  the  word  waiting  to  enter.  Faith  is  the  trust- 
ful surrender  and  expectancy  of  the  soul  towards 
God  ;  it  sets  the  heart's  door  open  for  Christ's  in- 
coming through  the  Spirit.  This  was  the  order  of 
things  from  the  beginning  of  the  new  dispensation. 
''God  gave  to  them,"  says  St  Peter  of  the  first 
baptized  Gentiles,  "  the  like  gift  as  He  did  also  unto 
us,  when  we  believed  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The 
Holy  Ghost  fell  on  them,  as  on  us  at  the  beginning  " 
(Acts  xi.  15-18).  Upon  our  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Holy  Spirit  enters  the  soul  and  announces  Himself 
by  His  message  of  adoption,  crying  in  us  to  God, 
Abba,  Father  (Gal.  iv.  6,  7). 

In  the  chamber  of  our  spirit,  while  we  abide  in  faith, 
the  Spirit  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  dwells  with  us, 
witnessing  to  us  of  the  love  of  God  and  leading  us 
into  all  truth  and  duty  and  divine  joy,  instilling  a 
deep  and  restful  peace,  breathing  an  energy  that  is 
a  fire  and  fountain  of  life  within  the  breast,  which 
pours  out  itself  in  prayer  and  labour  for  the  kingdom 
of  God.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  no  mere  gift  to  receive, 
or  comfort  to  enjoy  ;  He  is  an  almighty  Force  in  the 
believing  soul  and  the  faithful  Church. 

III.  The  end  for  which  the  seal  of  God  was  affixed 
to    Paul's   Gentile   readers,    along   with    their    Jewish 


'ot; 


6o  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


brethren  in  Christ,  appears  in  the  last  verse,  with 
which  the  Act  of  Praise  terminates  :  "  sealed,"  he  says, 
"with  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  is  the  earnest  of  our 
inheritance,  tintil  the  redemption  of  the  possession." 

The  last  of  these  words  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Old 
Testament  phrase  rendered  in  Exodus  xix.  5,  and  else- 
where, ^'  a  peculiar  treasure  unto  me  "  ;  in  Deuteronomy 
vii.  6,  etc.,  ''a  peculiar  people"  {i.e.,  people  of  posses- 
sion).  The  same  Greek  term  is  employed  by  the 
Septuagint  translators  in  Malachi  iii.  17,  where  our 
Revisers  have  substituted  "  a  peculiar  treasure "  for 
the  familiar,  but  misleading  "jewels"  of  the  older 
Version.  St  Peter  in  his  first  epistle  (ii.  9,  10)  trans- 
fers the  title  from  the  Jewish  people  to  the  new  Israel 
of  God,  who  are  "  an  elect  race,  a  royal  priesthood, 
a  holy  nation,  a  people  for  God's  own  possession.''*  In 
that  passage,  as  in  this,  the  Revisers  have  inserted  the 
word  God's  in  order  to  signify  whose  possession  the 
term  signifies  in  Biblical  use.  In  the  other  places 
in  the  New  Testament  where  the  same  Greek  noun 
occurs,*  it  retains  its  primary  active  force,  and  denotes 
^^ obtaining  of  the  glory,"  etc.,  ^'saving  of  the  soul." 
The  word  signifies  not  the  possessing  so  much  as  the 
acquiring  or  securing  of  its  object.  The  Latin  Vul- 
gate suitably  renders  this  phrase,  in  redemptionem 
acquisitionis, — "  till  the  redemption  of  the  acquisition." 

God  has  "  redeemed  unto  Himself  a  people  " ;  He 
has  "bought  us  with  a  price."  His  rights  in  us  are 
both  natural  and  acquired;  they  are  redemptional 
rights,  the  recovered  rights  of  the  infinite  love  which  in 
Jesus  Christ  saved  mankind  by  extreme  sacrifice  from 
the   doom  of  death   eternal.      This  redemption    ^^we 


*  I  Thess.  V.  9  ;  2  Thess.  ii.  14 ;  Heb.  x.  39. 


[2-14.]  THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION. 


have,  in  the  remission  of  our  trespasses "  (ver.  7). 
But  this  is  only  the  beginning.  Those  whose  sin  is 
cancelled  and  on  whom  God  now  looks  with  favour 
in  Christ,  are  thereby  redeemed  and  saved  (ii.  5,  8).* 
They  are  within  the  kingdom  of  grace ;  they  have 
passed  out  of  death  into  Hfe.  They  have  but  to 
persist  in  the  grace  into  which  they  have  entered,  and 
all  will  be  well.  ^'  Now/'  says  the  apostle  to  the 
Romans,  "  you  are  made  free  from  sin  and  made 
servants  to  God  ;  you  have  your  fruit  unto  holiness, 
and  the  end  eternal  Hfe." 

Our  salvation  is  come  ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  still  to 
come.  We  find  the  apostle  using  the  words  "  save  "  and 
"  redeem  "  in  this  twofold  sense,  applying  them  both  to 
the  commencement  and  the  consummation  of  the  new 
life.f  The  last  act,  in  Romans  viii.  23,  he  calls  ''  the 
redemption  of  the  body."  This  will  reinstate  the  man 
in  the  integrity  of  his  twofold  being  as  a  son  of  God. 
Hence  our  bodily  redemption  is  there  called  an  adoption. 
For  as  Jesus  Christ  by  His  resurrection  was  ''marked 
out  [or  instated]  as  Son  of  God  in  power  "  (Rom.  i.  4), 
not  otherwise  will  it  be  with  His  many  brethren.  Their 
reappearance  in  the  new  "  body  of  glory "  will  be 
a  ''revelation"  to  the  universe  "of  the  sons  of  God." 

But  this  last  redemption — or  rather  this  last  act  of 
the  one  redemption — like  the  first,  is  through  the  blood 

*  Comp.  Chapter  VIII. 

t  For  the  former  usage  see,  along  with  ver.  7  and  ch.  ii.  5,  8  ; 
Rom.  iii.  24,  X.  9  ;  Titus  iii.  5  ;  2  Tim.  i.  9  ;  Col.  i.  14 ;  Heb.  ix.  15  ; 
for  the  latter,  ch.  iv.  30 ;  Luke  xxi.  28 ;  Rom.  v.  9,  10,  viii.  23  ; 
Phil.  ii.  12;  I  Thess.  v.  8,  9 ;  2  Tim.  ii.  10,  iv.  18.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  St  Paul  ever  uses  these  terms  to  denote  present  salva- 
tion or  redemption  without  the  final  issue  being  also  in  his  thoughts. 
Perhaps  he  would  have  called  the  redemption  of  ver.  7,  in  contrast 
with  that  of  Rom.  viii.  23,  "  the  redemption  of  the  spirit." 


62  THE  EPISTLE   TO,  THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  the  cross.  Christ  has  borne  for  us  in  His  death 
the  entire  penalty  of  sin ;  the  remission  of  that  penalty 
comes  to  us  in  two  distinct  stages.  The  shadow  of 
death  is  lifted  off  from  our  spirits  now,  in  the  moment 
of  forgiveness.  But  for  reasons  of  discipline  it  remains 
resting  upon  our  bodily  frame.  Death  is  a  usurper 
and  trespasser  in  the  bounds  of  God's  heritage. 
Virtually  and  in  principle,  he  is  abolished ;  but  not  in 
effect.  "  I  will  ransom  them  from  the  power  of  the 
grave,"  *  the  Lord  said  of  His  Israel,  with  a  meaning 
deeper  than  His  prophet  knew.  When  that  is  done, 
then  God  will  have  redeemed,  in  point  of  fact,  those 
possessions  in  humanity  which  He  so  much  prizes, 
that  for  their  recovery  He  spared  not  His  Son. 

So  long  as  mortality  afQicts  us,  God  cannot  be 
satisfied  on  our  account.  His  children  are  suffering 
and  tortured  ;  His  people  mourn  under  the  oppression 
of  the  enemy.  They  sigh,  and  creation  with  them, 
under  the  burdensome  and  infirm  tabernacle  of  the 
flesh,  this  body  of  our  humiliation  for  which  the 
hungry  grave  clamours.  God's  new  estate  in  us  is 
still  encumbered  with  the  Habilities  in  which  the  sin 
of  the  race  involved  us,  with  the  ^*  ills  that  flesh  is 
heir  to."  But  this  mortgage — that  we  call,  with  a 
touching  euphemism,  the  debt  of  nature — will  at  last 
be  discharged.  Soon  shall  we  be  free  for  ever  from 
the  law  of  sin  and  death.  "  And  the  ransomed  of  the 
Lord  shall  return  and  come  with  singing  to  Zion,  and 
everlasting  joy  shall  be  upon  their  heads  :  they  shall 
obtain  gladness  and  joy,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall 
flee  away." 

To   God,   as   He  looks   down   upon    men,   the    seal 

*  Hosea  xiii.  14 ;  Isa.  xxv.  8. 


i.  12-14.]  THE  FINAL  REDEMPTION.  63 

of  His  Spirit  upon  their  hearts  anticipates  this  full 
emancipation.  He  sees  already  in  the  redeemed  spirit 
of  His  children  what  will  be  manifest  in  their  glorious 
heavenly  form.  The  same  token  is  to  ourselves  as 
believing  men  the  "  earnest  of  our  inheritance."  Note 
that  at  this  point  the  apostle  drops  the  ^*  you  "  by 
which  he  has  for  several  sentences  distinguished  be- 
tween Jewish  and  Gentile  brethren.  He  identifies 
them  with  himself  and  speaks  of  "our  inheritance." 
This  sudden  resumption  of  the  first  person,  the  self- 
assertion  of  the  filial  consciousness  in  the  writer 
breaking  through  the  grammatical  order,  is  a  fine  trait 
of  the  Pauline  manner.* 

Arj'habon,  the  earnest  (/as/ening  penny),  is  a  Phoenician 
word  of  the  market,  which  passed  into  Greek  and 
Latin, — a  monument  of  the  daring  pioneers  of  Medi- 
terranean commerce.  It  denotes  the  part  of  the  price 
given  by  a  purchaser  in  making  a  bargain,  or  of  the 
wages  given  by  the  hirer  concluding  a  contract  ot 
service,  by  way  of  assurance  that  the  stipulated  sum 
will  be  forthcoming.  Such  pledge  of  future  payment 
is  at  the  same  time  a  bond  between  those  concerned, 
engaging  each  to  his  part  in  the  transaction. 

The  earnest  is  the  seal,  and  something  more.  It 
is  an  instalment,  a  token  in  kind,  a  foretaste  of  the 
feast  to  come.  In  the  parallel  passage,  Romans  viii.  23, 
the  same  earnest  is  called  ''the  firstfruit  of  the  Spirit." 
What  the  earliest  sheaf  is  to  the  harvest,  that  the 
entrance  of  the  Spirit  of  God  into  a  human  soul  is 
to  the  glory  of  its  ultimate  salvation.  The  sanc- 
tity, the  joy,   the  sense  of  recovered  life  is  the  same 

*  The  same  incoherence  occurs  in  Gal.  iv.  5 — 7  :  "  that  we  might 
receive  the  adoption  of  sons.  And  because  ye  are  sons,  God  sent 
forth  the  Spirit  of  His  Son  into  our  hearts." 


64  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

in  kind  then  and  now,  differing  only  in   degree  and 
expression. 

Of  the  "  earnest  of  the  Spirit "  St  Paul  has  spoken 
twice  already,  in  2  Corinthians  i.  22  and  v.  5,  where 
he  cites  this  inner  witness  to  assure  us,  in  the  first 
instance,  that  God  will  fulfil  to  us  His  promises,  "  how 
many  soever  they  be  "  ;  and  in  the  second,  that  our 
mortal  nature  shall  be  "  swallowed  up  of  life  " — assimi- 
lated to  the  living  spirit  to  which  it  belongs — and  that 
''  God  has  wrought  us  for  this  very  thing."  These 
earlier  sayings  explain  the  apostle's  meaning  here. 
God  has  made  us  His  sons,  in  accordance  with  His 
purpose  formed  in  the  depths  of  eternity  (ver.  5).  As 
sons,  we  are  His  heirs  in  fellowship  with  Christ,  and 
already  have  received  rich  blessings  out  of  this  heritage 
(ver.  11).  But  the  richest  part  of  it,  including  that 
which  concerns  the  bodily  form  of  our  life,  is  still 
unredeemed,  notwithstanding  that  the  price  of  its 
redemption  is  paid. 

For  this  we  wait  till  the  time  appointed  of  the  Father, 
— the  time  when  He  will  reclaim  His  heritage  in  us, 
and  give  us  full  possession  of  our  heritage  in  Christ. 
We  do  not  wait,  as  did  the  saints  of  former  ages, 
ignorant  of  the  Father's  purpose  for  our  future  lot. 
'*  Life  and  immortality  are  brought  to  light  through 
the  gospel."  We  see  beyond  the  chasm  of  death. 
We  enjoy  in  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit  the  fore- 
taste of  an  eternal  and  glorious  life  for  all  the  children 
of  God — nay,  the  pledge  that  the  reign  of  evil  and 
death  shall  end  throughout  the  universe. 

With  this  hope  swelling  their  hearts,  the  apostle's 
readers  once  more  triumphantly  join  in  the  refrain  :  To 

THE  PRAISE  OF  HiS  GLORY. 


CHAPTER   V. 

FOR    THE  EYES   OF  THE  HEART. 

"  For  this  cause  I  also,  having  heard  of  the  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
which  is  among  you,  and  which  ye  sheiu  toward  all  the  saints,  cease  not 
to  give  thanks  for  you,  making  mention  of  you  in  my  prayers  : 

"  That  the  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father  of  glory,  may  give 
unto  you  a  spirit  of  wisdom  and  revelation  in  the  knowledge  of  Him  ; 
having  the  eyes  of  your  heart  enlightened,  that  ye  may  know  what  is 
the  hope  of  His  calling,  what  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  His  inheritance 
in  the  saints,  and  what  the  exceeding  greatness  of  His  power  toward  us 
who  believe,  according  to  that  working  of  the  might  of  His  strength 
which  He  wrought  in  the  Christ,  when  He  laised  Him  from  the  dead, 
and  made  Him  to  sit  at  His  right  hand  in  the  heavenly  places.^'— 

Eph,  i.  15-20. 

TDECAUSE  of  this:  because  you  have  heard  the  glad 
"^  tidings,  and  beUeving,  it  have  been  sealed  with  the 
Holy  Spirit  (vv.  13,  14).  I  too :  I  your  apostle,  with  so 
great  an  interest  in  your  salvation,  in  return  give  thanks 
for  you.  Thus  St  Paul,  having  extolled  to  the  utter- 
most God's  counsel  of  redemption  unfolded  through  the 
ages,  claims  to  offer  especial  thanksgiving  for  the  faith 
of  those  who  belong  to  his  Gentile  province  and  are, 
directly  or   indirectly,   the   fruit    of  his  own  ministry 

(iii.  I-I3)- 

The  intermediate  clause  of  verse  15,  describing  the 
readers'  faith,  is  obscure.  This  form  of  expression 
occurs  nowhere  else  in  St  Paul;  but  the  construction 
is  ustd  by  St  Luke,— ^.^.,  in  Acts  xxi.  21  :  "All  the 

65  5 


66 


THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE   EPHESIANS. 


Jews  which  are  among  the  Gentiles,"  where  it  implies 
diffusion  over  a  wide  area.     This  being  a  circular  letter, 
addressed  to  a  number  of  Churches  scattered  through 
the  province  of  Asia,  of  whose  faith  in  many  cases  St 
Paul  knew  only  by  report,  we  can  understand  how  he 
writes:   "having  heard   of  the    faith   that   is   [spread] 
amongst    you." — The    love,    completing   faith    in    the 
ordinary   text    (as   in  Col.    i.   4),  is  relegated  by   the 
Revisers  to  the  margin,  upon  evidence  that  seems  con- 
clusive.*    The  commentators,  however,  feel  so  strongly 
the  harshness  of  this  elHpsis  that,  in  spite  of  the  ancient 
witnesses,  they  read,  almost  with  one  consent,!  ^^your 
love  toward  all  the  saints."     The  variation  of  the  former 
clause  prepares  us,  however,  for  something  peculiar  in 
this.     In  verse   13  we  found    St   Paul's  thought  fixed 
on  the  decisive  fact  of  his  readers'  faith.     On  this  he 
still  dwells  lingeringly.     The  grammatical  link  needed 
between  ''  faith"  and  "  unto  all  the  saints  "  is  supplied 
in  the  Revised  Version  hy  ye  show,  after  the  analogy  of 
Philemon  5.     Perhaps  it  might  be  supplied  as  gram- 
matically, and  in  a  sense  better  suiting  the  situation, 
by  is  come.     Then  the  co-ordinate  prepositional  phrases 
qualifying  ''faith"  have   both   alike  a   local  reference, 
and  we  paraphrase  the  clause  thus  :  "  since  I  heard  of 
the  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  which  is  spread  amongst 
you,  and  whose  report  has  reached  all  the  saints." 

We  are  reminded  of  the  thanksgiving  for  the  Roman 
Church,  ''  that  your  faith  is  proclaimed  throughout  the 


*  See  Westcott  and  Hort's  New  Testament  in  Greek,  vol.  ii.,  pp. 
124,  125. 

t  Dr.  Beet  abides  by  the  critical  text.  He  solves  the  difficulty  by 
giving  TTio-ris  a  double  sense  :  *'  the  faith  among  you  in  the  Lord  Je^us, 
and  \ki^  faithfulness  towards  all  the  saints."  See  his  Commentary  on 
Ephesians,  etc.,  pp.  284-6. 


i.  15-20.]         FOR    THE  EYES   OF   THE  HEART  67 


whole  world."*  The  success  of  the  gospel  in  Asia 
gave  encouragement  to  believers  in  Christ  everywhere. 
St  Paul  loves  in  this  way  to  link  Church  to  Church, 
to  knit  the  bonds  of  faith  between  land  and  land  :  in 
this  letter  most  of  all ;  for  it  is  his  catholic  epistle,  the 
epistle  of  the  Church  oecumenical. 

In  verse  16  we  pass  from  praise  to  prayer.  God  is 
invoked  by  a  double  title  peculiar  to  this  passage,  as 
**  the  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father  of 
glory."  The  former  expression  is  in  no  way  difficult. 
The  apostle  often  speaks,  as  in  verse  3,  of  *'  the  God 
and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ":  intending  to 
qualify  the  Divine  Fatherhood  by  another  epithet,  he 
writes  for  once  simply  of  '^  the  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."  This  reminds  us  of  the  dependence  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  upon  the  eternal  Father,  and  accentuates  the 
Divine  sovereignty  so  conspicuous  in  the  foregoing  Act 
of  Praise.  Christ's  constant  attitude  towards  the  Father 
was  that  of  His  cry  of  anguish  on  the  cross,  "  My  God, 
my  God  !  "  Yet  He  never  speaks  to  men  of  our  God. 
To  us  God  is  ''the  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  as 
He  was  to  the  men  of  old  time  "  the  God  of  Abraham 
and  of  Isaac  and  of  Jacob." 

The  key  to  the  designation  Father  of  glory  is  in 
Romans  vi.  4 :  ''  Christ  was  raised  from  the  dead 
through  the  glory  of  the  Father.'''  In  the  light  of  this 
august  manifestation  of  God's  power  to  save  His  lost 
sons  in  Christ,  we  are  called  to  see  light  (vv.  19,  20). 
Its  glory  shines  already  about  God's  blessed  name 
of  Father,  thrice  glorified  in  the  apostle's  praise  (vv. 
3-14).  The  title  is  the  counterpart  of  "  the  Father  of 
compassions  "  in  2  Corinthians  i.  3. 

*  In  I  Thess.  i.  7-9 ;  2  Thess.  i.  4,  the  same  thought  enters  into  Paul's 
hanksgiving  ;  comp.  2  Cor.  ix.  2. 


68  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


And  now,  what  has  the  apostle  to  ask  of  the  Father  of 
men  under  these  glorious  appellations  ?  He  asks  "  a 
spirit  of  wisdom  and  revelation  in  the  full-knowledge  * 
of  Him, — the  eyes  of  your  heart  enlightened,  in  order  that 
you  may  know,"  etc.  This  recalls  the  emphasis  with 
which  in  verses  8  and  9  he  set  "  wisdom  and  intelli- 
gence "  amongst  the  first  blessings  bestowed  by  Divine 
grace  upon  the  Church.  It  was  the  gift  which  the  Asian 
Churches  at  the  present  juncture  most  needed  ;  this  is 
just  now  the  burden  of  the  apostle's  prayers  for  his 
people. 

The  spirit  of  wisdom  and  revelation  desired  will  pro- 
ceed from  the  Holy  Spirit  dwelling  in  these  Gentile 
believers  (ver.  13).  But  it  must  belong  to  their  own 
spirit  and  direct  their  personal  mental  activity,  the 
spirit  of  revelation  becoming  *'  the  spirit  of  their  mind  " 
(iv.  23).  When  St  Paul  asks  for  "  a  spirit  of  wisdom 
and  revelation^^  he  desires  that  his  readers  may  have 
amongst  themselves  a  fountain  of  inspiration  and  share 
in  the  prophetic  gifts  diffused  through  the  Church,  t 
And  *'  the  knowledge — the  full,  deep  knowledge  of 
God  "  is  the  sphere  ''  in  "  which  this  richer  inspiration 
and  spiritual  wisdom  are  exercised  and  nourished. 
"  Philosophy,  taking  man  for  its  centre,  says.  Know 
thyself',  only  the -inspired  word,  which  proceeds  from 
God,  has  been  able  to  say.  Know  Gody  % 

The  connexion  of  the  first  clause  of  verse  18  with  the 
last  of  verse  17  is  not  very  clear  in  St  Paul's  Greek  ; 
there  is  a  characteristic  incoherence  of  structure.     The 


*  This  is  the  emphatic  e7ri7J'wats,  so  frequent  in  the  later  epistles.     See 
Lightfoot's  note  on  Col.  i.  9  ;  or  Cremer's  Lexicon  to  N.T.  Greek. 
t  See  ch.  iii.  3-5,  iv.  ii  ;  and  comp.  i  Cor.  xiv.  26-40,  etc. 

X  Adolphe  Monod  :  Explication  de  Vepitre  de  S.  Paul  atix  Ephesiens> 
A  deeply  spiritual  and  suggestive  Commentary. 


15-20.]         FOR   THE  EYES   OF  THE   HEART.  69 


continuity  of  thought  is  unmistakable.  He  prays  that 
through  this  inspired  wisdom  his  readers  may  have 
their  reason  enhghtened  to  see  the  grandeur  and 
wealth  of  their  religion.  This  is  a  vision  for  "  the  eyes 
of  the  heart."  It  is  disclosed  to  the  eye  behind  the 
eye,  to  the  heart  which  is  the  true  discerner. 

"The  seeing  eyes 
See  best  by  the  light  in  the  heart  that  Hes." 

Yonder  is  an  ox  grazing  in  the  meadow  on  a  bright 
summer's  day.      Round  him  is  spread  the  fairest  land- 
scape,—a  broad  stretch  of  herbage  embroidered  with 
flowers,   the  river  gleaming   in    and   out  amongst  the 
distant  trees,  the  hills  on  both  sides  bounding  the  quiet 
valley,   sunshine  and   shadows   chasing  each  other  as 
they  leap  from  height  to  height.     But  of  all  this  what 
sees  the  grazing  ox  ?     So  much  lush  pasture  and  cool 
shade  and  clear  water  where  his  feet  may  plash  when 
he  has  done  feeding.     In  the  same  meadow  there  stands 
a  poet  musing,  or  a  painter  busy  at  his  easel ;  and  on 
the  soul  of  that  gifted  man   there   descends,  through 
eyes  outwardly  discerning  no  more  than  those  of  the 
beast  at  his  side,  a  vision  of  wonder  and  beauty  which 
will  make  all  time  richer.     The  eyes  of  the  man's  heart 
are  opened,  and  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  revelation  is 
given  him  in  the  knowledge  of  God's  work  in  nature. 

Like  differences  exist  amongst  men  in  regard  to  the 
things  of  religion.  ''So  foolish  was  I  and  ignorant," 
says  the  Psalmist,  speaking  of  his  former  dejection 
and  unbelief,  "  I  was  as  a  beast  before  Thee  !  "  There 
shall  be  two  men  sitting  side  by  side  in  the  same  house 
of  prayer,  at  the  same  gate  of  heaven.  The  one  sees 
heaven  opened;  he  hears  the  eternal  song;  his  spirit 
is  a  temple  filled  with  the  glory  of  God,     The  other 


70  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESTANS. 

sees  the  place  and  the  aspect  of  his  fellow-worshippers ; 
he  hears  the  music  of  organ  and  choir,  and  the 
sound  of  some  preacher's  voice.  But  as  for  anything 
besides,  any  influence  from  another  world,  it  is  no 
more  to  him  at  that  moment  than  is  the  music  in  the 
poet's  soul  or  the  colours  on  the  painter's  canvas  to 
the  ox  that  eateth  grass. 

It  is  not  the  strangeness  and  distance  of  Divine 
things  alone  that  cause  insensibility  ;  their  familiarity 
has  the  same  effect.  We  know  all  this  gospel  so  well. 
We  have  read  it,  Hstened  to  it,  gone  over  its  points 
of  doctrine  a  hundred  times.  It  is  trite  and  easy  to 
us  as  a  worn  glove.  We  discuss  without  a  tremor 
of  emotion  truths  the  first  whisper  and  dim  promise  of 
which  once  lifted  men's  souls  into  ecstasy,  or  cast  them 
down  into  depths  of  shame  and  bewilderment  so  that 
they  forgot  to  eat  their  bread.  The  awe  of  things 
eternal,  the  mystery  of  our  faith,  the  Spirit  of  glory  and 
of  God  rest  on  us  no  longer.  So  there  come  to  be,  as 
one'  hears  it  said,  gospel-hardened  hearers — and  gospel- 
hardened  preachers  !  The  eyes  see — and  see  not ;  the 
ears  hear — and  hear  not ;  the  lips  speak  without  feeling ; 
the  heart  is  waxen  fat.  This  is  the  nemesis  of  grace 
abused.  It  is  the  result  that  follows  by  an  inevitable 
psychological  law,  where  outward  contact  with  spiritual 
truth  is  not  attended  with  an  inward  apprehension  and 
response.  How  do  we  need  to  pray,  in  handling  these 
dread  themes,  for  a  true  sense  and  savour  of  Divine 
things, ^ — that  there  may  be  given,  and  ever  given 
afresh  to  us  "  a  spirit  of  wisdom  and  revelation  in  the 
knowledge  of  God." 

Three  things  the  apostle  desires  that  his  readers 
may  see  with  the  heart's  enlightened  eyes  :  the  hope  to 


I5-20.J        FOR    THE  EYES   OF   THE  HEART.  71 


which  God  calls  them,  the  wealth  that  He  possesses  in 
them,  and  the  power  which  He  is  prepared  to  exert  upon 
them  as  believing  men. 

I.  What,  then,  is  our  hope  in  God  ?  What  is  the 
ideal  of  our  faith  ?  For  what  purpose  has  God  called 
us  into  the  fellowship  of  His  Son  ?  What  is  our 
religion  going  to  do  for  us  and  to  make  of  us  ? 

It  will  bring  us  safe  home  to  heaven.  It  will  deliver 
us  from  the  present  evil  world,  and  preserve  us  unto 
Christ's  heavenly  kingdom.  God  forbid  that  we  should 
make  light  of  ''  the  hope  laid  up  for  us  in  the  heavens," 
or  cast  it  aside.  It  is  an  anchor  of  the  soul,  both 
sure  and  steadfast.  But  is  it  the  hope  of  our  calling  ? 
Is  this  what  St  Paul  here  chiefly  signifies?  We  are 
very  sure  that  it  is  not.  But  it  is  the  one  thing  which 
stands  for  the  hope  of  the  gospel  in  many  minds.  "  We 
trust  that  our  sins  are  forgiven  :  we  hope  that  we  shall 
get  to  heaven  !  "  The  experience  of  how  many  Chris- 
tian believers  begins  and  ends  there.  We  make  of 
our  religion  a  harbour  of  refuge,  a  soothing  anodyne, 
an  escape  from  the  anguish  of  guilt  and  the  fear  of 
death  ;  not  a  life-vocation,  a  grand  pursuit. .  The  de- 
finition we  have  quoted  may  suffice  for  the  beginning 
and  the  end ;  but  we  need  something  to  fill  out  that 
formula,  to  give  body  and  substance,  meaning  and 
movement  to  the  life  of  faith. 

Let  the  apostle  tell  us  what  he  regarded,  for  himself, 
as  the  end  of  religion,  what  was  the  object  of  his 
ambition  and  pursuit.  ''One  thing  I  do,"  he  writes 
to  the  Philippians,  opening  to  them  all  his  heart,— 
"One  thing  I  do.  I  press  towards  the  mark  for  the 
prize  of  my  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus."  And 
what,  pray,  was  that  mark?— "that  I  may  gain  Christ 
and  be  found  in   Him  !— that   I  may  know  Him,  and 


72  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

the  power  of  His  resurrection  and  the  fellowship  of 
His  sufferings,  being  conformed  to  His  death,  if  by 
any  means  I  may  attain  unto  the  final  resurrection 
from  the  dead."  Yes,  Paul  hopes  for  heaven ;  but  he 
hopes  for  something  else  first,  and  most.  It  is  through 
Christ  that  he  sees  heaven.  To  know  Christ,  to 
love  Christ,  to  serve  Christ,  to  follow  Christ,  to  be  like 
Christ,  to  be  with  Christ  for  ever  ! — that  is  what  St 
Paul  lived  for.  Whatever  aim  he  pursues  or  affection 
he  cherishes,  Christ  lies  in  it  and  reaches  beyond  it. 
In  doing  or  in  suffering,  in  his  intellect  and  his  heart, 
in  his  thoughts  for  himself  or  for  others,  Christ  is  all 
things  to  him  and  in  all.  When  life  is  thus  filled  with 
Christ,  heaven  becomes,  as  one  may  say,  a  mere  cir- 
cumstance, and  death  but  an  incident  upon  the  way, — 
in  the  soul's  everlasting  pursuit  of  Christ. 

Behold,  then,  brethren,  the  hope  of  our  calling. 
God  could  not  call  us  to  any  destiny  less  or  lower  than 
this.  It  would  have  been  unworthy  of  Him, — and  may 
we  not  say,  unworthy  of  ourselves,  if  we  are  in  truth 
His  sons  ?  From  eternity  the  Father  of  spirits  has 
predestined  you  and  me  to  be  holy  and  without  blemish 
before  Him, — in  a  word,  to  be  conformed  to  the  image 
of  His  Son.  Every  other  hope  is  dross  compared  to 
this. 

II.  Another  vision  for  the  heart's  eyes,  still  more 
amazing  than  that  we  have  seen  :  ^'  what  is,"  St  Paul 
writes,  ''  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  God's  inheritance  in 
the  saints." 

We  saw,  in  considering  the  eleventh  and  fourteenth 
verses,  how  the  apostle,  in  characteristic  fashion,  plays 
upon  the  double  aspect  of  the  inheritance,  regarding  it 
now  as  the  heritage  of  the  saints  in  God  and  again  as 
His  heritage  in  them.    The  former  side  of  this  relation- 


i.  15-20.]        FOR   THE  EYES   OF   THE  HEART.  73 


ship  was  indicated  in  the  "  hope  of  the  Divine  calHng," 
— which  we  live  and  strive  for  as  it  is  promised  us 
by  God  ;  and  the  latter  comes  out,  by  way  of  contrast, 
in  this  second  clause.  Verse  18  repeats  in  another 
way  the  antithesis  of  verse  14  between  our  inheritance 
and  God's  acquisition.  We  must  understand  that  God 
sets  great  store  by  us  His  human  children,  and  counts 
Himself  rich  in  our  affection  and  our  service.  How 
deeply  it  must  affect  us  to  know  this,  and  to  see  the 
glory  that  in  God's  eyes  belongs  to  His  possession 
in  believing  men. 

What  presumption  is  all  this,  some  one  says.  How 
preposterous  to  imagine  that  the  Maker  of  the  worlds 
interests  Himself  in  atoms  like  ourselves, — in  the 
ephemera  of  this  insignificant  planet  !  But  moral 
magnitudes  are  not  to  be  measured  by  a  foot-rule. 
The  mind  which  can  traverse  the  immensities  of  space 
and  hold  them  in  its  grasp,  transcends  the  things  it 
counts  and  weighs.  As  it  is  amongst  earthly  powers, 
so  the  law  may  hold  betv/ixt  sphere  and  sphere  in  the 
system  of  worlds,  in  the  relations  of  bodies  terrestrial 
and  celestial  to  each  other,  that  ''  God  has  chos.en  the 
weak  things  to  put  to  shame  the  mighty,  and  the 
things  that  are  not  to  bring  to  nought  the  things  that 
are."  Through  the  Church  He  is  "  making  known  to 
the  potentates  in  the  heavenly  places  His  manifold 
wisdom  "  (iii.  10).  The  lowly  can  sing  evermore  with 
Mary  in  the  Magnificat :  ''  He  that  is  mighty  hath 
magnified  me."  If  it  be  true  that  God  spared  not  His 
Son  for  our  salvation  and  has  sealed  us  with  the  seal 
of  His  Spirit,  if  He  chose  us  before  the  world's  founda- 
tion to  be  His  saints.  He  must  set  upon  those  saints 
an  infinite  value.  We  may  despise  ourselves  ;  but  He 
thinks  great  things  of  us, 


74  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


And  is  this,  after  all,  so  hard  to  understand  ?  If  the 
alternative  were  put  to  some  owner  of  wide  lands  and 
houses  full  of  treasure :  ^'  Now,  you  must  lose  that  fine 
estate,  or  see  your  own  son  lost  and  ruined  !  You 
must  part  with  a  hundred  thousand  pounds — or  with 
your  best  friend  !  "  there  could  be  no  doubt  in  such  a 
case  what  the  choice  would  be  of  a  man  of  sense  and 
worth,  one  who  sees  with  the  eyes  of  the  heart.  Shall 
we  think  less  nobly  of  God  than  of  a  right-minded 
man  amongst  ourselves  ? — Suppose,  again,  that  one  of 
our  great  cities  were  so  full  of  wealth  that  the  poorest 
were  housed  in  palaces  and  fared  sumptuously  every 
day,  though  its  citizens  were  profligates  and  thieves 
and  cowards !  What  would  its  opulence  and  luxury 
be  worth  ?  Is  it  not  evident  that  character  is  the  only 
possession  of  intrinsic  value,  and  that  this  alone  gives 
worth  and  weight  to  other  properties  ?  "  The  saints 
that  are  in  the  earth  and  the  excellent "  are  earth's 
riches. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge  of  His  ways,  the  great  God 
who  made  us  cares  comparatively  little  about  the  up- 
holstery and  machinery  of  the  universe  ;  but  He  cares 
immensely  about  men,  about  the  character  and  destiny 
of  men.  There  is  nothing  in  all  that  physical  science 
discloses  for  God  to  love,  nothing  kindred  to  Himself. 
"  Hast  thou  considered  my  servant  Job  ?  "  the  Hebrew 
poet  pictures  Him  saying  before  heaven  and  hell  !  — 
"Hast  thou  considered  my  servant  Job? — a  perfect 
man  and  upright :  there  is  none  like  him  in  the  earth. ' 
How  proud  God  is  of  a  man  like  that,  in  a  world  like 
this.  Who  can  tell  the  value  that  the  Father  of  glory 
sets  upon  the  tried  fidelity  of  His  humblest  servant  here 
on  earth  ;  the  intensity  with  which  He  reciprocates  the 
confidence  of  one  timjd,  trembling  human  heart,  or  the 


i.  15-20.]         FOR    THE  EYES   OF   THE   HEART. 


75 


simple  reverence  of  one  little  child  that  lisps  His 
awful  name  ?  "  He  taketh  pleasure  in  them  that  fear 
Him,  in  those  that  hope  in  His  mercy!"  Beneath 
His  feet  all  the  worlds  lie  spread  in  their  starry  splen- 
dour, our  sun  with  its  train  of  planets  no  more  than 
one  glimmering  spot  of  light  amongst  ten  thousand. 
But  amidst  this  magnificence,  what  is  the  sight  that 
wins  His  tender  fatherly  regard  ?  *'  To  that  man  will 
I  look,  that  is  poor  and  of  a  contrite  spirit,  and  that 
trembles  at  my  word."  Thus  saith  the  High  and  Lofty 
One  that  inhabiteth  eternity.  The  Creator  rejoices  in 
His  works  as  at  the  beginning,  the  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth  in  His  dominion.  But  these  are  not  His 
''inheritance."  That  is  in  the  love  of  His  children,  in 
the  character  and  number  of  His  saints.  We  are  to 
be  the  praise  of  His  glory. 

Let  us  learn,  then,  to  respect  ourselves.  Let  us 
not  take  the  world's  tinsel  for  wealth,  and  spend  our 
time,  like  the  man  in  Bunyan's  dream,  scraping  with 
"  the  muck-rake"  while  the  crown  of  life  shines  above 
our  head.  The  riches  of  a  Church — nay,  of  any  human 
community — lies  not  in  its  moneyed  resources,  but  in 
the  men  and  women  that  compose  it,  in  their  godlike 
attributes  of  mind  and  heart,  in  their  knowledge,  their 
zeal,  their  love  to  God  and  man,  in  the  purity,  the 
gentleness,  the  truthfulness  and  courage  and  fidelity 
that  are  found  amongst  them.  These  are  the  qualities 
which  give  distinction  to  human  life,  and  are  beautiful 
in  the  eyes  of  God  and  holy  angels.  "  Man  that  is  in 
honour  and  understandeth  not,  is  like  the  beasts  that 
perish." 

in.  One  thing  more  we  need  to  understand,  or  what 
we  have  seen  already  will  be  of  little  practical  avail. 
We  may  see    glorious  visions,  we    may  cherish    high 


76  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


aspirations  ;  and  they  may  prove  to  be  but  the  dreams  of 
vanity.  Nay,  it  is  conceivable  that  God  Himself  might 
have  wealth  invested  in '  our  nature,  a  treasure  beyond 
price,  shipwrecked  and  sunk  irrecoverably  through  our 
sin.  What  means  exist  for  realizing  this  inheritance  ? 
what  power  is  there  at  work  to  recover  these  forfeited 
hopes,  and  that  glory  of  God  of  which  we  have  come 
so  miserably  short  ? 

The  answer  hes  in  the  apostle's  words  :  "  That  ye 
may  know  what  is  the  exceeding  greatness  of  His 
power  toward  us  that  believe," — a  power  measured  by 
'*  the  energy  of  the  miight  of  His  strength  *  which  He 
wrought  in  the  Christ,  when  He  raised  Him  from  the 
dead. and  set  Him  at  His  right  hand  in  the  heavenly 
places."  This  is  the  power  that  we  have  to  count 
upon,  the  force  that  is  yoked  to  the  world's  salvation 
and  is  at  the  service  of  our  faith.  Its  energy  has 
turned  the  tide  and  reversed  the  stream  of  nature — in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  and  in  the  course  of  human 
history.  It  has  changed  death  to  life.  Above  all,  it 
certifies  the  forgiveness  of  sin  and  releases  us  from 
its  liabilities ;  it  transforms  the  law  of  sin  and  death 
into  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus. 

We  preachers  hear  it  said  sometimes  :  ''  You  live  in 
a  speculative  world.  Your  doctrines  are  ideal  and 
visionary, — altogether  too  high  for  men  as  they  are  and 


*  In  this  amplitude  of  expression  there  is  no  idle  heaping  up  of 
words.  The  four  synonyms  for /cic/c'r  have  each  a  distinct  force  in  the 
sentence,  ^^vafits  '\% power  in  general,  as  that  which  is  able  to  effect  some 
purpose  ;  ivepyeia  is  energy,  power  in  effective  action  and  operation  ; 
KpuTos  is  might,  mastery,  sovereign  power, — in  the  New  Testament 
used  chiefly  of  the  power  of  God  ;  iVxi^s  \?,  force,  strength,  power  resident 
in  some  person  and  belonging  to  him.  This  is  the  order  in  which  the 
words  follow  each  other.     Compare  vi.  lO   in  the  Greek. 


i.  15-20.]        FOR   THE  EYES   OF  THE  HEART.  77 


the  world  as  we  find  it.     Human  nature  and  experience, 
the  coarse  realities  of  life  are  all  against  you." 

What  would  our  objectors  have  said  at  the  grave- 
side of  Jesus  ?  "The  beautiful  dreamer,  the  sublime 
idealist !  He  was  too  good  for  a  world  such  as  ours. 
It  was  sure  to  end  like  this.  His  ideas  of  life  were 
utterly  impracticable."  So  they  would  have  morahzed. 
"  And  the  good  prophet  talked— strangest  fanaticism  01 
all — of  rising  again  on  the  third  day !  One  thing  at 
least  we  know,  that  the  dead  are  dead  and  gone  from 
us.  No,  we  shall  never  see  Jesus  or  His  like  again. 
Purity  cannot  live  in  this  infected  air.  The  grave  ends 
all  hope  for  men."  But,  despite  human  nature  and 
human  experience,  He  has  risen  again.  He  lives  for 
ever  !  That  is  the  apostle's  message  and  testimony  to 
the  world.  For  those  "who  believe  "  it,  all  things  are 
possible.  A  life  is  within  our  reach  that  seemed  far 
off  as  earth  from  heaven.  You  may  become  a  perfect 
saint. 

From  His  open  grave  Christ  breathed  on  His  dis- 
ciples, and  through  them  on  all  mankind,  the  Holy 
Spirit.  This  is  the  efficient  cause  of  Christianity, — the 
Spirit  that  raised  Jesus  our  Lord  from  the  dead.  The 
limit  to  its  efficacy  lies  in  the  defects  of  our  faith, 
in  our  failure  to  comprehend  what  God  gave  us  in 
His  Son.  Is  anything  now  too  hard  for  the  Lord  ? 
Shall  anything  be  called  impossible,  in  the  line  of  God's 
promise  and  man's  spiritual  need  ?  Can  we  put  an 
arrest  upon  the  working  of  this  mysterious  force,  upon 
the  Spirit  of  the  new  life,  and  say  to  it :  Thus  far  shalt 
thou  go,  and  no  farther  ? 

Look  at  Jesus  where  He  was — the  poor,  tortured, 
wounded  body,  slain  by  our  sins,  lying  cold  and  still 
in  Joseph's  grave  :  then  lift  up  your  eyes  and  see  Him 


78  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

where  He  is, — enthroned  in  the  worship  and  wonder  of 
heaven  !  Measure  by  that  distance,  by  the  sweep  and 
hft  of  that  almighty  Arm,  the  strength  of  the  forces 
engaged  to  your  salvation,  the  might  of  the  powers 
at  work  through  the  ages  for  the  redemption  of 
humanity. 


THE   DOCTRINE. 
Chapter  i.  20 — iii.   13. 


79 


'T\l/T]\Cvp  atpodpa  yt/xec  tQu  vorj/maTUi^  Kal  vircpoyKUiu.    "A  yap  [xi)()aiJ.ov 
aX^oou  e<pdiy^0LTO,  ravTO,  ivravda  (fjr^aLV. 

John   Chrysostom  :   In  episiolam  ad  Ephcsios. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

WHAT  GOD   WROUGHT  IN   THE   CHRIST. 

'*  He  raised  Him  from  the  dead,  and  made  Ilim  to  sit  at  His  right 
hand  in  the  heavenly  places,  far  above  all  rule,  and  authority,  and 
power,  and  dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only  in  this 
world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come  :  and  He  put  all  things  in 
subjection  under  His  feet,  and  Him  He  gave — the  head  over  all  things 
—  to  the  Church  which  is  His  body, — the  fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all 
in  all." — Eph.  i.  20-23. 

THE  division  that  we  make  at  verse  20,  marking 
off  at  this  point  the  commencement  of  the  Doctrine 
of  the  epistle,  may  appear  somewhat  forced.  The  great 
doxology  of  the  first  half  of  the  chapter  is  intensely 
theological  ;  and  the  prayer  which  follows  it,  like  that 
of  the  letter  to  the  Colossians,  melts  into  doctrine 
imperceptibly.  The  apostle  teaches  upon  his  knees. 
The  things  he  has  to  tell  his  readers,  and  the  things 
he  has  asked  on  their  behalf  from  God,  are  to  a  great 
extent  the  same.  Still  the  writer's  attitude  in  the 
second  chapter  is  manifestly  that  of  teaching ;  and  his 
doctrine  there  is  so  directly  based  upon  the  concluding 
sentences  of  his  prayer,  that  it  is  necessary  for  logical 
arrangement  to  place  these  verses  within  the  doctrinal 
section  of  the  epistle. 

The  resurrection  of  Christ  made  men  sensible  that  a 
new  force  of  Hfe  had  come  into  the  world,  of  incalculable 
potency.      This   power  was  in  existence    before.      In 

81  6 


82  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

prelusive  ways,  it  has  wrought  in  the  world  from  its 
foundation,  and  since  the  fall  of  man.  By  the  incarna- 
tion of  the  Son  of  God  it  took  possession  of  human 
flesh;  by  His  sacrificial  death  it  won  its  decisive 
triumph.  But  the  virtue  of  these  acts  of  Divine  grace 
lay  in  their  hiding  of  power,  in  the  self-abnegation 
of  the  Son  of  God  who  emptied  Himself  and  took  a 
servant's  form,  and  became  obedient  unto  death. 

With  what  a  rebound  did  the  "  energy  of  the  might  of 
God's  strength  "  put  forth  itself  in  Him,  when  once  this 
sacrifice  was  accomplished  !  Even  His  disciples  who 
had  seen  Jesus  still  the  tempest  and  feed  the  multitude 
from  a  handful  of  bread  and  call  back  the  spirit  to  its 
mortal  frame,  had  not  dreamed  of  the  might  of  God- 
head latent  in  Him,  until  they  beheld  Him  risen  from 
the  dead.  He  had  promised  this  in  words ;  but  they 
understood  His  words  only  when  they  saw  the  fact, 
when  He  actually  stood  before  them  ''  alive  after  His 
passion."  The  scene  of  Calvary — the  cruel  sufferings  of 
their  Master,  His  helpless  ignominy  and  abandonment 
by  God,  the  malignant  triumph  of  his  enemies — gave  to 
this  revelation  an  effect  beyond  measure  astonishing 
and  profound  in  its  impression.  From  the  stupor  of 
grief  and  despair  they  were  raised  to  a  boundless  hope, 
as  Jesus  rose  from  the  death  of  the  cross  to  glorious 
life  and  Godhead. 

Of  the  same  nature  was  the  effect  produced  by  His 
manifestation  to  Paul  himself.  The  Nazarene  prophet 
known  to  Saul  by  report  as  an  attractive  teacher  and 
worker  of  miracles,  had  made  enormous  pretensions, 
blasphemous  if  they  were  not  true.  He  put  Himself  for- 
ward as  the  Messiah  and  the  very  Son  of  God  !  But 
when  brought  to  the  test.  His  power  utterly  failed.  God 
disowned  and  forsook  Him  ;  and  He  "  was  crucified  of 


1.20-23.]     IVHAT  GOD   WROUGHT  IN   THE   CHRIST        83 

weakness."  His  followers  declared,  indeed,  that  He  had 
returned  from  the  grave.  But  who  could  believe  them, 
a  handful  of  Galilean  enthusiasts,  desperately  clinging  to 
the  name  of  their  disgraced  leader !  If  He  has  risen,  why 
does  He  not  show  Himself  to  others  ?  Who  can  accept 
a  crucified  Messiah  ?  The  new  faith  is  a  madness, 
and  an  insult  to  our  common  Judaism  !  Such  were 
Saul's  former  thoughts  of  the  Christ.  But  when  his 
challenge  was  met  and  the  Risen  One  confronted  him 
in  the  way  to  Damascus,  when  from  that  Form  of  in- 
sufferable glory  there  came  a  voice  saying,  "I  am  Jesus, 
whom  thou  persecutest  ! "  it  was  enough.  Instantly 
the  conviction  penetrated  his  soul,  **  He  liveth  by  the 
power  of  God."  Saul's  previous  reasonings  against 
the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  by  the  same  rigorous  logic 
were  now  turned  into  arguments  for  Him. 

It  is  ^' the  Christ,"  let  us  observe,  in  whom  God 
"  wrought  raising  Him  from  the  dead  "  :  the  Christ  of 
Jewish  hope  (ver.  12),  the  centre  and  sum  of  the  Divine 
counsel  for  the  world  (ver.  10),*  the  Christ  whom  in 
that  moment  never  to  be  forgotten  the  humbled  Saul 
recognized  in  the  crucified  Nazarene. 

The  demonstration  of  the  power  of  Christianity  Paul 
had  found  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
power  which  raised  Him  from  the  dead  is  the  working 
energy  of  our  faith.  Let  us  see  what  this  mysterious 
power  wrought  in  the  Redeemer  Himself;  and  then  we 
will  consider  how  it  bears  upon  us.  There  are  two 
steps  indicated  in  Christ's  exaltation  :  He  was  raised 
/rom  the  death  of  the  cross  to  new  life  amongst  men  ;  and 
again  from  the  world  of  men  He  was  raised  to  the  throne 
of  God  in  heaven.     In  the  enthronement  of  Jesus  Christ 

*  See  the  note'npon  this  definite  article  on  p.  47. 


84  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

at  the  Father's  right  hand,  verses  22,  23  further  dis- 
tinguish two  separate  acts  :  there  was  conferred  on  Him 
a  universal  Lordship ;  and  He  was  made  specifically 
Head  of  the  Church,  being  given  to  her  for  her  Lord 
and  Life,  He  who  contains  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead. 
Such  is  the  line  of  thought  marked  out  for  us. 

L  God  raised  the  Christ  from  the  dead. 

This  assertion  is  the  corner-stone  of  St  Paul's  life 
and  doctrine,  and  of  the  existence  of  Christendom.  Did 
the  event  really  take  place  ?  There  were  Christians  at 
Corinth  who  affirmed,  "  There  is  no  resurrection  of  the 
dead."  And  there  are  followers  of  Jesus  now  who  with 
deep  sadness  confess,  like  the  author  of  Obcnnann  once 
more : 

"Now  He  is  dead  !     Far  hence  He  lies 
In  the  lorn  Syrian  town  ; 
And  on  His  grave,  with  shining  eyes, 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down." 

If  we  are  driven  to  this  surrender,  compelled  to  think 
that  it  was  an  apparition,  a  creation  of  their  own 
passionate  longing  and  heated  fancy  that  the  disciples 
saw  and  conversed  with  during  those  forty  days,  an 
apparition  sprung  from  his  fevered  remorse  that  arrested 
Saul  on  the  Damascus  road — if  w^e  no  longer  believe 
in  Jesus  and  the  resurrection,  it  is  in  vain  that  we  still 
call  ourselves  Christians.  The  foundation  of  the  Chris- 
tian creed  is  struck  away  from  under  our  feet.  Its  spell 
is  broken ;  its  energy  is  gone. 

Individual  men  may  and  do  continue  to  believe  in 
Christ,  with  no  faith  in  the  supernatural,  men  who  are 
.sceptics  in  regard  to  His  resurrection  and  miracles. 
They  believe  in  Himself,  they  say,  not  in  His  legendary 
wonders ;    in    His    character    and    teaching,    in    His 


i.  20-23.]     WHAT  GOD    WROUGHT  IN   THE   CHRIST.    ^85 

beneficent  influence — in  the  spiritual  Christ,  whom  no 
physical  marvel  can  exalt  above  His  intrinsic  greatness. 
And  such  trust  in  Him,  where  it  is  sincere,  He  accepts 
for  all  that  it  is  worth,  from  the  believer's  heart.  But 
this  is  not  the  faith  that  saved  Paul,  and  built  the 
Church.  It  is  not  the  faith  which  will  save  the  world. 
It  is  the  faith  of  compromise  and  transition,  the  faith 
of  those  whose  conscience  and  heart  cling  to  Christ 
while  their  reason  gives  its  verdict  against  Him.  Such 
belief  may  hold  good  for  the  individuals  who  profess 
it ;  but  it  must  die  with  them.  No  skill  of  reasoning 
or  grace  of  sentiment  will  for  long  conceal  its  inconsist- 
ency. The  plain,  blunt  sense  of  mankind  will  decide 
again,  as  it  has  done  already,  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
either  a  blasphemer,  or  He  was  the  Son  of  the  eternal 
God  ;  either  He  rose  from  the  dead  in  very  truth,  or 
His  religion  is  a  fable.  Christianity  is  not  bound  up 
with  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  whether  in  Pope  or 
Councils,  nor  with  the  inerrancy  of  the  letter  of  Scrip- 
ture :  it  stands  or  falls  with  the  reality  of  the  facts 
of  the  gospel,  with  the  risen  life  of  Christ  and  His 
presence  in  the  Spirit  amongst  men. 

The  fact  of  Christ's  resurrection  is  one  upon  which 
modern  science  has  nothing  new  to  say.  The  law  of 
death  is  not  a  recent  discovery.  Men  were  as  well 
aware  of  its  universality  in  the  first  century  as  they  are 
in  the  nineteenth,  and  as  little  disposed  as  we  are  our- 
selves to  believe  in  the  return  of  the  dead  to  bodily  life. 
The  stark  reality  of  death  makes  us  all  sceptics. 
Nothing  is  clearer  from  the  narratives  than  the  utter 
surprise  of  the  friends  of  Jesus  at  His  reappearance, 
and  their  complete  unpreparedness  for  the  event. 
They  were  not  eager,  but  "  slow  of  heart  to  believe." 
Their   very   love    to    the    Master,    as    in    the    case    of 


86  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Thomas,  made  them  fearful  of  self-deception.  It  is 
a  shallow  and  an  unjust  criticism  that  dismisses  the  dis- 
ciples as  interested  witnesses  and  predisposed  to  faith 
in  the  resurrection  of  their  dead  Master.  Should  we 
be  thus  credulous  in  the  case  of  our  best-beloved  dead  ? 
The  instinctive  feeling  that  meets  any  thought  of  the 
kind,  after  the  fact  of  death  is  once  certain,  is  rather  that 
of  deprecation  and  aversion,  such  as  Martha  expressed 
when  Jesus  went  to  call  her  brother  from  his  grave.  In 
all  the  long  record  of  human  imposture  and  illusion,  no 
resurrection  story  has  ever  found  general  credence 
outside  of  the  Biblical  revelation.  No  system  of  faith 
except  our  own  has  ever  been  built  on  the  allegation 
that  a  dead  man  rose  from  the  grave. 

Christ's  was  not  the  only  resurrectioiv;  but  it  is  the 
on\y  final  resurrection.  Lazarus  of  Bethany  left  his  tomb 
at  the  word  of  Jesus,  a  living  man ;  but  he  was  still  a 
mortal  man,  doomed  to  see  corruption.  He  returned  from 
the  grave  on  this  side,  as  he  had  entered  it,  "  bound  hand 
and  foot  with  grave-clothes."  Not  so  with  the  Christ. 
He  passed  through  the  region  of  death  and  issued  on  the 
immortal  side,  escaped  from  the  bondage  of  corruption. 
Therefore  He  is  called  the  "  firstfruits  "  and  "  the  first- 
born out  of  the  dead."  *  Hence  the  alteration  manifest 
in  the  risen  form  of  Jesus.  He  was  ''  changed,"  as  St 
Paul  conceives  those  will  be  who  await  on  earth  their 
Lord's  return  (i  Cor.  xv.  51).  The  mortal  in  Him  was 
swallowed  up  of  hfe.  The  corpse  that  was  laid-  in 
Joseph's  tomb  was  there  no  longer.  From  it  another 
body  has   issued,  recognized  for  the  same  person  by 


*  UpurdroKos  eK  tCjv  veKpCJv,  Col.  i.  l8  :  comp.  Rom.  vi.  13,  x.  7,  for 
the  force  of  the  preposition.  Hence  the  peculiar  i^avdaraaiv  rrjv  Ik 
ueKpQv  of  Phil.  iii.  10,  ii,— the  out-and-out  resurrection,  which  will 
utterly  remove  us  from  the  sphere  of  death. 


i.  20-23.]     WHAT  GOD    WROUGHT  IN   THE   CHRIST.       87 


look  and  voice  and  movement,  but  indescribably 
transfigured.  Visible  and  tangible  as  the  body  of  the 
Risen  One  was — "  Handle  me,  and  see,"  He  said — it 
was  superior  to  material  limitations  ;  it  belonged  to  a 
state  whose  laws  transcend  the  range  of  our  experience, 
in  which  the  body  is  the  pliant  instrument  of  the 
animating  spirit.  From  the  Person  of  the  risen 
Saviour  the  apostle  formed  his  conception  of  the 
''  spiritual  body,"  the  **  house  from  heaven "  with 
which,  as  he  teaches,  each  of  the  saints  will  be  clothed 
— the  wasted  form  that  we  lay  down  in  the  grave  being 
transformed  into  the  semblance  of  His  "  body  of  glory, 
according  to  the  mighty  working  whereby  He  is  able 
to  subdue  all  things  to  Himself"  (Phil.  iii.  20,  21). 

The  resurrection  of  the  Christ  inaugurated  a  new 
order  of  things.  It  was  like  the  appearance  of  the  first 
living  organism  amidst  dead  matter,  or  of  the  first 
rational  consciousness  in  the  unconscious  world.  He 
"  is,"  says  the  apostle,  the  "  beginning,  first-begotten 
out  of  the  dead  "  (Col.  i.  18).  With  the  harvest  filHng 
our  granaries,  we  cease  to  wonder  at  the  firstfruits ; 
and  in  the  new  heavens  and  earth  Christ's  resurrection 
will  seem  an  entirely  natural  thing.  Immortahty  will 
then  be  the  normal  condition  of  human  existence. 

That  resurrection,  nevertheless,  did  homage  to  the 
fundamental  law  of  science  and  of  reason,  that 
every  occurrence,  ordinary  or  extraordinary,  shall 
have  an  adequate  cause.  The  event  was  not  more 
singular  and  unique  than  the  nature  of  Him  to  whom 
it  befell.  Looking  back  over  the  Divine  life  and  deeds 
of  Jesus,  St  Peter  said  :  "  It  was  not  possible  that  He 
should  be  holden  of  death."  How  unfitting  and  repug- 
nant to  thought,  that  the  common  death  of  all  men 
should  come  upon  Jesus  Christ !     There  was  that  in 


88  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESlANS. 

His  Person,  in  its  absolute  purity  and  godlikeness, 
which  repelled  the  touch  of  corruption.  He  was 
*'  marked  out/'  writes  our  apostle,  ''  as  Son  of  God, 
according  to  His  spirit  of  holiness,  by  His  resurrection 
from  the  dead  "  (Rom.  i.  4).  These  two  signs  of  God- 
head agree  in  Jesus  ;  and  the  second  is  no  more  super- 
human than  the  first.  For  Him  the  supernatural  was 
natural.  There  was  a  mighty  working  of  the  being  of 
God  latent  in  Him,  which  transcended  and  subdued  to 
itself  the  laws  of  our  physical  frame,  even  more  com- 
pletely than  they  do  the  laws  and  conditions  of  the 
lower  realms  of  nature. 

II.  The  power  which  raised  Jesus  our  Lord  from  the 
dead  could  not  leave  Him  in  the  world  of  sin  and 
death.  Lifting  Him  from  hades  to  earth,  by  another 
step  it  exalted  the  risen  Saviour  above  the  clouds, 
and  seated  Him  at  God's  right  hand  in  the  heavens. 

The  forty  days  were  a  halt  by  the  way,  a  condescend- 
ing pause  in  the  operation  of  the  almighty  power  that 
raised  Him.  '^  I  ascend,"  He  said  to  the  first  that  saw 
Him, — "  I  ascend  to  my  Father  and  your  Father,  to  my 
God  and  your  God."  He  must  see  His  own  in  the 
world  again  ;  He  must  "show  Himself  alive  after  His 
passion  by  infallible  proofs,"  that  their  hearts  may  be 
comforted  and  knit  together  in  the  assurance  of  faith, 
that  they  may  be  prepared  to  receive  His  Spirit  and  to 
bear  their  witness  to  the  world.  Then  He  will  ascend 
up  where  He  was  before,  returning  to  the  Father's 
bosom.  It  was  impossible  that  a  spiritual  body  should 
tarry  in  a  mortal  dwelling  ;  impossible  that  the  familiar 
relations  of  discipleship  should  be  resumed.  No 
new  follower  can  now  ask  of  Him,  "  Rabbi,  where 
dwellest  Thou,"  under  what  roof  amid  the  homes  of 
men  ?     For  He  dwells  with  those  that  love  Him  always 


and  everywhere,  like  the  Father  (John  xiv.  23).  From 
this  time  Christ  will  not  be  known  after  the  flesh,  but  as 
the  ''  Lord  of  the  Spirit  "  (2  Cor.  iii.  18). 

"  In  the  heavenlies "  now  abides  the  Risen  One. 
This  expression,  so  frequent  in  the  epistle  as  to  be 
characteristic  of  it,*  denotes  not  locality  so  much  as 
condition  and  sphere.  It  speaks  of  the  bright  and 
deathless  world  of  God  and  the  angels,  of  which  the 
sky  has  always  been  to  men  the  symbol.  Thither 
Christ  ascended  in  the  eyes  of  His  apostles  on  the 
fortieth  day  from  His  rising.  Once  before  His  death 
its  brightness  for  a  moment  had  irradiated  His  form 
upon  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration.  Clad  in  the  hke 
celestial  splendour  He  showed  Himself  to  His  future 
apostle  Paul,  as  to  one  born  out  of  due  time,  to  make 
him  His  minister  and  witness.  Since  then,  of  all  the 
multitudes  that  have  loved  His  appearing,  no  other  has 
looked  upon  Him  with  bodily  eyes.  He  dwells  with 
the  Father  in  light  unapproachable. 

But  rest  and  felicity  are  not  enough  for  Him.  Christ 
sits  at  the  right  hand  of  power,  that  He  may  rule.  In 
those  heavenly  places,  it  seems,  there  are  thrones 
higher  and  lower,  names  more  or  less  eminent,  but  His 
stands  clear  above  them  all.  In  the  realms  of  space, 
in  the  epochs  of  eternity  there  is  none  to  rival  our 
Lord  Jesus,  no  power  that  does  not  owe  Him  tribute. 
God  "  hath  put  all  things  under  His  feet."  The  Christ, 
who  died  on  the  cross,  who  rose  in  human  form  from 
the  grave,  is  exalted  to  share  the  Father's  glory  and 
dominion,  is  filled  with  God's  own  fulness,  and  made 
without  limitation  or  exception  ''  Head  over  all  things." 

*  Ver.  3,  ch.  ii.  6,  iii.  lo,  vi.  12  ;  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament. 
Comp.,  however,  i  Cor.  xv.  40,  48  ;  Phil.  ii.  10  ;  Heb.  viii.  5,  ix.  23, 
xi.  16,  xii.  22,  where  the  adjective  has  the  same  kind  of  use. 


90  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


In  his  enumeration  of  the  angelic  orders  in  verse  21, 
the  apostle  follows  the  phraseology  current  at  the  time, 
without  giving  any  precise  dogmatic  sanction  to  it.  The 
epistle  to  the  Colossians  furnishes  a  somewhat  different 
list  (ch.  i.  16)  ;  and  in  i  Corinthians  xv.  24  we  find 
the  "  principality,  dominion,  and  power "  without  the 
"  lordship."  As  Lightfoot  says,*  St  Paul  "  brushes  away 
all  these  speculations  "  about  the  ranks  and  titles  of  the 
angels,  "  without  inquiring  how  much  or  how  little  truth 
there  may  be  in  them.  .  .  .  His  language  shows  a  spirit 
of  impatience  with  this  elaborate  angelology.''  There 
is,  perhaps,  a  passing  reproof  conveyed  by  this  sentence 
to  the  ''  worshipping  of  the  angels  "  inculcated  at  the 
present  time  in  Colossae,  to  which  other  Asian  Churches 
may  have  been  drawn.  "  Paul's  faith  saw  the  Risen 
and  Rising  One  passing  through  and  beyond  and  above 
successive  ranks  of  angelic  powers,  until  there  was  in 
heaven  no  grandeur  which  He  had  not  left  behind. 
Then,  after  naming  heavenly  powers  known  to  him, 
he  uses  a  universal  phrase  covering  '  not  only '  those 
known  by  men  living  on  earth  '  in  the  '  present  '  age,  but 
also '  those  names  which  will  be  needed  and  used  to 
describe  men  and  angels  throughout  the  eternal  future  " 
(Beet). 

The  apostle  appropriates  here  two  sentences  of 
Messianic  prophecy,  from  Psalms  ex.  and  viii.  The 
former  was  addressed  to  the  Lord's  Anointed,  the  King- 
Priest  enthroned  in  Zion  :  ''Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand, 
until  I  make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool  !  "  The  latter 
text  describes  man  in  his  pristine  glory,  as  God  formed 
him  after  His  likeness  and  set  him  in  command  over 
His  creation.     This   saying  St   Pa\il  applies,  with  an 

*  Note  on  Col.  i.  16. 


i.  20-23.]     WHAT  GOD    WROUGHT  IN   THE   CHRIST.       91 

unbounded  scope,  to  the  God-man  raised  from  the  dead, 
Founder  of  the  new  creation  :  "  Thou  madest  Him  to 
have  dominion  over  the  works  of  Thy  hands  ;  Thou  hast 
put  all  things  under  His  feet."  To  the  former  of  these 
passages  St  Paul  repeatedly  alludes  ;  indeed,  since  our 
Lord  quoted  it  in  this  sense,  it  became  the  standing 
designation  of  His  heavenly  dignity.*  The  words  of 
Psalm  viii.  are  brought  in  evidence  again  in  Hebrews 
ii.  5-10,  and  expounded  from  a  somewhat  different 
standpoint.  As  the  writer  of  the  other  epistle  shows, 
this  coronation  belongs  to  the  human  race,  and  it  falls 
to  the  Son  of  man  to  win  it.  St  Paul  in  quoting  the 
same  Psalm  is  not  insensible  of  its  human  reference. 
It  was  a  prophecy  for  Jesus  and  His  brethren,  for 
Christ  and  the  Church.  So  it  forms  a  natural  trans- 
ition from  the  thought  of  Christ's  dominion  over  the 
universe  (ver.  21)  to  that  of  His  union  with  the 
Church  (ver.  22b). 

III.  The  second  clause  of  verse  22  begins  with  an 
emphasis  upon  the  objecl  which  the  English  Version 
fails  to  recognize  :  "  and  Him  He  gave  " — the  Christ 
exalted  to  universal  authority — ^'Hifu  God  gave,  Head 
over  all  things  [as  He  is],  to  the  Church  which  is  His 
body, — the  fulness  of  Him  who  fills  all  things  in  all." 

At  the  topmost  height  of  His  glory,  with  thrones 
and  princedoms  beneath  His  feet,  Christ  is  given  to  the 
Church  !  The  Head  over  all  things,  the  Lord  of  the 
created  universe.  He — and  none  less  or  lower — is  the 
Head  of  redeemed  humanity.  For  the  Church  **  is  His 
body  "  (this  clause  is  interjected  by  way  of  explanation)  : 
she  is  the  vessel  of  His  Spirit,  the  organic  instrument 
of  His  Divine-human  life.     As  the  spirit  belongs  to  its 

*  Matt.  xxii.  41-46,  also  in  Mark  and  Luke;  Acts  ii.   34,  35  5   Rom. 
viii.  34;  Col.  iii.  i ;  Heb.  i.  13 ;  i  Peter  iii.  22,  etc. 


92  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

body,  by  the  like  fitness  the  Christ  in  His  surpassing 
glory  is  the  possession  of  the  community  of  believing 
men.  The  body  claims  its  head,  the  wife  her  husband. 
No  matter  where  Christ  is,  however  high  in  heaven, 
He  belongs  to  us.  Though  the  Bride  is  lowly  and  of 
poor  estate.  He  is  hers  !  and  she  knows  it,  and  holds 
fast  His  heart.  She  recks  little  of  the  people's  ignorance 
and  scorn,  if  their  Master  is  her  affianced  Lord,  and  she 
the  best-beloved  in  His  eyes. 

How  rich  is  this  gift  of  the  Father  to  the  Church 
in  the  Son  of  His  love,  the  concluding  words  of  the 
paragraph  declare  :  "  Him  He  gave  ...  to  the  Church 
.  .  .  [gave]  the  fulness  of  Him  that  fills  all  in  all."  In 
the  risen  and  enthroned  Christ  God  bestowed  on  men 
a  gift  in  which  the  Divine  plenitude  that  fills  creation  is 
embraced.  For  this  last  clause,  it  is  clear  to  us,  does 
not  qualify  "the  Church  which  is  His  body,"  and 
expositors  have  needlessly  taxed  their  ingenuity  with 
the  incongruous  apposition  of  "body"  and  "fulness"; 
it  belongs  to  the  grand  Object  of  the  foregoing  descrip- 
tion, to  "  the  Christ "  whom  God  raised  from  the  dead 
and  invested  with  His  own  prerogatives.  The  two 
separate  designations,  "  Head  over  all  things "  and 
"  Fulness  of  the  All-filler,"  are  parallel,  and  alike  point 
back  to  Him  who  stands  with  a  weight  of  gathered 
emphasis — heaped  up  from  verse  19  onwards — at  the 
front  of  this  last  sentence  (ver.  22b).  There  has  been 
nothing  to  prepare  the  reader  to  ascribe  the  august 
title  of  the  pleroma,  the  Divine  fulness,  to  the  Church  — 
enough  for  her,  surely,  if  she  is  His  body  and  He  God's 
gift  to  her — but  there  has  been  everything  to  prepare 
us  to  crown  the  Lord  Jesus  with  this  glory.  To  that 
which  God  had  wrought  in  Him  and  bestowed  on  Him, 
as   previously  related,  verse  23  adds  something  more 


i.  20-23-]     WHAT  GOD   WROUGHT  IN   THE   CHRIST.       93 


and  greater  still;  for  it  shows  what  God  makes  the 
Christ  to  be,  not  to  the  creatures,  to  the  angels,  to  the 
Church,  but  to  God  Himself!  * 

Our  text  is  in  strict  agreement  with  the  sayings 
about  "the  fulness"  in  Colossians  i.  15-20  and  ii.  9,  10; 
as  well  as  with  the  later  references  of  this  epistle,  in 
chapter  iii.  19,  iv.  13  ;  and  with  John  i.  16.  This  title 
belongs  to  Christ  as  God  is  in  Him  and  communicates 
to  Him  all  Divine  powers.  It  was,  in  the  apostle's  view, 
a  new  and  distinct  act  by  which  the  Father  bestowed 
on  the  incarnate  Son,  raised  by  His  power  from  the 
dead,  the  functions  of  Deity.  Of  this  glory  Christ  had 
of  His  own  accord  "emptied  Himself"  in  becoming 
man  for  our  salvation  (Phil.  ii.  6,  7).  Therefore  when 
the  sacrifice  was  effected  and  the  time  of  humiliation 
past,  it  "  was  the  Father's  pleasure  that  all  the  fulness 
should  make  its  dwelling  in  Him"  (Col.  i.  19).  At  no 
point  did  Christ  exalt  Himself,  or  arrogate  the  glory 
once  renounced.  He  prayed,  when  the  hour  was  come  : 
"Now,  Father,  glorify  Thou  me  with  Thine  own  self, 
with  the  glory  which  I  had  with  Thee  before  the  world 
was."  It  was  for  the  Father  to  say,  as  He  raised  and 
enthroned  Him  :  "  Thou  art  my  Son ;  I  to-day  have 
begotten  Thee!"  (Acts  xiii.  33). 

Again  there  was  poured  into  the  empty,  humbled 
and  impoverished  form  of  the  Son  of  God  the  brightness 
of  the  Father's  glory  and  the  infinitude  of  the  Father's 
authority  and  power.  The  majesty  that  He  had  fore- 
gone was  restored  to  Him  in  undiminished  measure. 

*  The  reader  of  the  Old  Testament,  unless  otherwise  advertized,  must 
inevitably  have  referred  the  words  who  filleth  all  things  in  all  to  the 
Supreme  God.  See  Jer.  xxiii.  24 ;  Isai.  vi.  i,  3 ;  Hag.  ii.  7 ;  Ps,  xxxiii. 
5,  etc. ;  Exod.  xxxi.  3.  "  That  filleth  all  in  all "  is  an  attribute  belonging 
to  "  the  same  God,  that  worketh  all  in  all  "  (i  Cor.  xii.  6).    Comp.  iv.  6. 


94  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


But  how  great  a  change  meanwhile  in  Him  who 
received  it !  This  plenitude  devolves  not  now  on  the 
eternal  Son  in  His  pure  Godhead,  but  on  the  Christ, 
the  Head  and  Redeemer  of  mankind.  God  who  fills 
the  universe  with  His  presence,  with  His  cherishing 
love  and  sustaining  power,  has  conferred  the  fulness  of 
all  that  He  is  upon  our  Christ.  He  has  given  Him,  so 
replenished  and  perfected,  to  the  body  of  His  saints, 
that  He  may  dwell  and  work  in  them  for  ever. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

FROM  DEATH   TO  LIFE. 

"And  you  did  He  quicken,  when  ye  were  dead  through  your  tres- 
passes and  sins,  wherein  aforetime  ye  walked  according  to  the  course  of 
this  world,  according  to  the  prince  of  the  power  of  the  air,  of  the  spirit 
that  now  worketh  in  the  sons  of  disobedience;  among  whom  we  also 
all  once  lived  in  the  lusts  of  our  flesh,  doing  the  desires  of  the  flesh  and 
of  the  mind,  and  were  by  nature  children  of  wrath,  even  as  the  rest  : — 
but  God,  being  rich  in  mercy,  for  His  great  love  wherewith  He  loved 
us,  even  when  we  were  dead  through  our  trespasses,  quickened  us 
together  with  the  Christ  (by  grace  have  ye  been  saved),  and  raised  us 
up  together  and  made  us  to  sit  together  in  the  heavenly  places  in  Christ 
Jesus." — Eph.  ii.  i-6. 

WE  pass  by  a  sudden  transition,  just  as  in 
Colossians  i.  21,  22,  from  the  thought  of  that 
which  God  wrought  in  Christ  Himself  to  that  which 
He  works  through  Christ  in  believing  men.  So  God 
raised,  exalted,  and  glorified  His  Son  Jesus  Christ 
(i.  19-23) — and  you  !  The  finely  woven  threads  of 
the  apostle's  thought  are  frequently  severed,  and  awk- 
ward chasms  made  in  the  highway  of  his  argument  by 
our  chapter  and  verse  divisions.  The  words  inserted 
in  our  Version  {did  He  quicken)  are  borrowed  by  antici- 
pation from  verse  5  ;  but  they  are  more  than  supplied 
already  in  the  foregoing  context.  "  The  same  almighty 
Hand  that  was  laid  upon  the  body  of  the  dead  Christ 
and  lifted  Him  from  Joseph's  grave  to  the  highest  seat 
in  heaven,  is  now  laid  upon  your  soul.     It  has  raised 

95 


96  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE   EPHESIANS. 


you  from  the  grave  and  death  of  sin  to  share  by  faith 
His  celestial  life." 

The  apostle,  in  verse  3,  pointedly  includes  amongst 
the  "  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins "  himself  and  his 
Jewish  fellow-believers  as  they  *'  once  lived/'  when 
they  obeyed  the  motions  and  ''volitions  of  the  flesh," 
and  so  were  "  by  birth"  not  children- of  favour,  as  Jews 
presumed,  but  "  children  of  anger,  even  as  the  rest."  * 

This  passage  gives  us  a  sublime  view  of  the  event 
of  our  conversion.  It  associates  that  change  in  us 
with  the  stupendous  miracle  which  took  place  in  our 
Redeemer.  The  one  act  is  a  continuation  of  the  other. 
There  is  an  acting  over  again  in  us  of  Christ's  cruci- 
fixion, resurrection  and  ascension,  when  we  realize 
through  faith  that  which  was  done  for  mankind  in  Him. 
At  the  same  time,  the  redemption  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  is  no  mere  legacy,  to  be  received  or  declined ;  it 
is  not  something  done  once  for  all,  and  left  to  be  appro- 
priated passively  by  our  individual  will.  It  is  a  ^^ power 
of  God  unto  salvation,"  unceasingly  operative  and  effec- 
tive, that  works  "  of  faith  and  unto  faith ^^^  that  summons 
men  to  faith,  challenging  human  confidence  wherever 
its  message  travels  and  awakening  the  spiritual  possi- 
bilities dormant  in  our  nature. 

It  is  a  supernatural  force,  then,  which  is  at  work 
upon  us  in  the  word  of  Christ.  It  is  a  resurrection- 
power,  that  turns  death  into  life.  And  it  is  a  power 
instinct  with  love.  The  love  which  went  out  towards 
the  slain  and  buried  Jesus  when  the  Father  stooped 
to  raise  Him  from  the  dead,  bends  over  us  as  we 
lie  in  the  grave  of  our  sins,  and  exerts  itself  with  a 

*  For  the  antithesis  of  "you"  and  **we,"  comp.  vv.  11-18,  ch.  i. 
12,  13;  also  Rom.  iii.  19,  23  {For  there  is  no  distinction)^  Gal.  ii.  i^. 


ii.  1-6.]  FROM  DEATH   TO  LIFE,  97 

might  no  less  transcendent,  that  it  may  raise  us  from 
the  dust  of  death  to  sit  with  Him  in  the  heavenly 
places  (vv.  4-6). 

Let  us  look  at  the  two  sides  of  the  change  effected 
in  men  by  the  gospel — at  the  death  they  leave,  and 
the  Hfe  into  which  they  enter.  Let  us  contemplate  the 
task  to  which  this  unmatched  power  has  set  itself. 

L  You  that  were  dead,  the  apostle  says. 

Jesus  Christ  came  into  a  dead  world — He  the  one 
living  man,  alive  in  body,  soul,  and  spirit — alive  to  God 
in  the  world.  He  was,  like  none  besides,  aware  of 
God  and  of  God's  love,  breathing  in  His  Spirit,  'Miving 
not  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  t)roceeded 
from  His  mouth."  "This,"  He  said,  '*  is  Hfe  eternal." 
If  His  definition  was  correct,  if  it  be  life  to  know  God, 
then  the  world  into  which  Christ  entered  by  His 
human  birth,  the  world  of  heathendom  and  Judaism, 
was  veritably  dying  or  dead — "  dead  indeed  unto  God.' 

Its  condition  was  visible  to  discerning  eyes.  It  was 
a  world  rotting  in  its  corruption,  mouldering  in  its 
decay,  and  which  to  His  pure  sense  had  the  moral 
aspect  and  odour  of  the  charnel-house.  We  realize 
very  imperfectly  the  distress,  the  inward  nausea,  the 
conflict  of  disgust  and  pity  which  the  fact  of  being  in 
such  a  world  as  this  and  belonging  to  it  caused  in  the 
nature  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  a  soul  that  was  in  perfect 
sympathy  with  God.  Never  was  there  loneliness  such 
as  His,  the  sohtude  of  life  in  a  region  peopled  with  the, 
dead.  The  joy  which  Christ  had  in  His  little  flock, 
in  those  whom  the  Father  had  given  Him  out  of  the 
world,  was  proportionately  great.  In  them  He  found 
companionship,  teachableness,  signs  of  a  heart  awaken- 
ing towards  God — men  to  whom  life  was  in  some 
degrte  what  it  was  to   Him.     He   had  come,   as  the 


98  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


prophet  in  his  vision,  into  ''  the  valley  full  of  dry 
bones,"  and  He  "  prophesied  to  these  slain,  that  they 
might  live."  What  a  comfort  to  see,  at  His  first  words, 
a  shaking  in  the  valley, — to  see  some  who  stirred  at 
His  voice,  who  stood  upon  their  feet  and  gathered 
round  Him — not  yet  a  great  army,  but  a  band  of  living 
men  !  In  their  breasts,  inspired  from  His,  was  the  Hfe 
of  the  future.  "1  am  come,"  He  said,  "that  they 
might  have  life."  It  was  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  to 
breathe  His  vital  spirit  into  the  corpse  of  humanity,  to 
reanimate  the  world. 

When  St  Paul  speaks  of  his  readers  in  their  heathen 
condition  as  *'  dead,"  it  is  not  a  figure  of  speech.  He 
does  not  mean  that  they  were  Hke  dead  men,  that  their 
state  resembled  death ;  '*  nor  only  that  they  were  in 
peril  of  death ;  but  he  signifies  a  real  and  present 
death  "  (Calvin).  They  were,  in  the  inmost  sense  and 
truth  of  things,  dead  men.  We  are  twofold  creatures, 
two-lived, — spirits  cased  in  flesh.  Our  human  nature 
is  capable,  therefore,  of  strange  duplicities.  It  is 
possible  for  us  to  be  alive  and  flourishing  upon  one 
side  of  our  being,  while  we  are  paralyzed  or  lifeless 
upon  the  other.  As  our  bodies  live  in  commerce  with 
the  light  and  air,  in  the  environment  of  house  and  food 
and  daily  exercise  of  the  limbs  and  senses  under  the 
economy  of  material  nature,  so  our  spirits  live  by  the 
breath  of  prayer,  by  faith  and  love  towards  God,  by 
reverence  and  filial  submission,  by  communion  with 
things  unseen  and  eternal.  "With  Thee,"  says  the 
Psalmist  to  his  God,  "  is  the  fountain  of  Hfe  :  in  Thy 
light  we  see  light."  We  must  daily  resort  to  that 
fountain  and  drink  of  its  pure  stream,  we  must  faithfully 
walk  in  that  light,  or  there  is  no  such  life  for  us.  The 
soul  that  wants  a  true  faith  in  God,  wants  the  proper 


ii.  1-6.]  FROM  DEATH   TO  LIFE.  99 

spring  and  principle  of  its  being.  It  sees  not  the  light, 
it  hears  not  the  voices,  it  breathes  not  the  air  of  that 
higher  world  where  its  origin  and  its  destiny  lie. 

The  man  who  walks  the  earth  a  sinner  against  God, 
becomes  by  the  act  and  fact  of  his  transgression  a  dead 
man.  He  has  imbibed  the  fatal  poison  ;  it  runs  in  his 
veins.  The  doom  of  sin  lies  on  his  unforgiven  spirit. 
He  carries  death  and  judgement  about  with  him.  They 
lie  down  with  him  at  night  and  wake  with  him  in  the 
morning ;  they  take  part  in  his  transactions ;  they  sit 
by  his  side  in  the  feast  of  life.  His  works  are  "  dead 
works " ;  his  joys  and  hopes  are  all  shadowed  and 
tainted.  Within  his  living  frame  he  bears  a  coffined 
soul.  With  the  machinery  of  life,  with  the  faculties 
and  possibilities  of  a  spiritual  being,  the  man  lies 
crushed  under  the  activity  of  the  senses,  wasted  and 
decaying  for  want  of  the  breath  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
In  its  coldness  and  powerlessness — ^too  often  in  its 
visible  corruption — his  nature  shows  the  symptoms  of 
advancing  death.  It  is  dead  as  the  tree  is  dead,  cut 
off  from  its  root ;  as  the  fire  is  dead,  when  the  spark  is 
gone  out ;  dead  as  a  man  is  dead,  when  the  heart  stops. 

As  it  is  with  the  departed  saints  sleeping  in  Christ, 
—  "put  to  death,  indeed,  in  the  flesh,  but  living  in  the 
spirit," — so  by  a  terrible  inversion  with  the  wicked  in 
this  life.  They  are  put  to  death,  indeed,  in  the  spirit, 
while  they  Hve  in  the  flesh.  They  may  be  and  often 
are  powerfully  alive  and  active  in  their  relations  to  the 
world  of  sense,  while  on  the  unseen  and  Godward  side 
utterly  paralyzed.  Ask  such  a  man  about  his  business 
or  family  concerns  :  touch  on  affairs  of  politics  or  trade, 
— and  you  deal  with  a  living  mind,  its  powers  and  sus- 
ceptibilities awake  and  alert.  But  let  the  conversation 
pass  to  other  themes ;  sound  him  on  questions  of  the 


icx)  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

inner  life ;  ask  him  what  he  thinks  of  Christ,  how  he 
stands  towards  God,  how  he  fares  in  the  spiritual 
conflict, — and  you  strike  a  note  to  which  there  is  no 
response.  You  have  taken  him  out  of  his  element. 
He  is  a  practical  man,  he  tells  you  ;  he  does  not  hve 
in  the  clouds,  or  hunt  after  shadows ;  he  believes  in 
hard  facts,  in  things  that  he  can  grasp  and  handle. 
*'The  natural  man  perceiveth  not  the  things  of  the 
Spirit  of  God.  They  are  foolishness  to  him."  They 
are  pictures  to  the  eye  of  the  blind,  heavenly  music 
to  the  stone-deaf. 

And  yet  that  hardened  man  of  the  world — starve  and 
ignore  his  own  spirit  and  shut  up  its  mystic  chambers 
as  he  will — cannot  easily  destroy  himself.  He  has  not 
extirpated  his  religious  nature,  nor  crushed  out,  though 
he  has  suppressed,  the  craving  for  God  in  his  breast. 
And  when  the  callous  surface  of  his  life  is  broken 
through,  under  some  unusual  stress,  some  heavy  loss 
or  the  shock  of  a  great  bereavement,  one  may  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  deeper  world  within  of  which  the  man 
himself  was  so  little  conscious.  And  what  is  to  be  seen 
there  ?  Haunting  memories  of  past  sin,  fears  of  a  con- 
science fretted  already  by  the  undying  worm,  forms  of 
weird  and  ghostly  dread  flitting  amid  the  gloom  and  dust 
of  death  through  that  closed  house  of  the  spirit, — 

' '  The  bat  and  owl  inhabit  here  : 

The  snake  nests  on  the  altar  stone  : 
The  sacred  vessels  moulder  near  : 
The  image  of  the  God  is  gone  ! " 

In  this  condition  of  death  the  word  of  life  comes  to 
men.  It  is  the  state  not  of  heathendom  alone  ;  but  of 
those  also,  favoured  with  the  light  of  revelation,  who 
have  not  opened  tu  it  the  eyes  of  the  heart,  of  all  who 


ii.  1-6.]  FROM  DEATH   TO  LIFE.  loi 

are  "doing  the  desires  of  the  flesh  and  the  thoughts" 
— who  are  governed  by  their  own  impulses  and  ideas 
and  serve  no  will  above  the  world  of  sense.*  Without 
distinction  of  birth  or  formal  religious  standing,  "all" 
who  thus  live  and  walk  are  dead  while  they  live.  Their 
trespasses  and  sins  have  killed  them.  From  first  to  last 
Scripture  testifies  :  "  Your  sins  have  separated  between 
you  and  your  God."  We  find  a  hundred  excuses  for  our 
irreligion :  there  is  the  cause.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  universe  to  separate  any  one  of  us  from  the  love  and 
fellowship  of  his  Maker  but  his  own  unforsaken  sin. 

It  is  true,  there  are  other  hindrances  to  faith,  intel- 
lectual difficulties  of  great  weight  and  seriousness,  that 
press  upon  many  minds.  For  such  men  Christ  has 
all  possible  sympathy  and  patience.  There  is  a  real, 
though  hidden  faith  that  "lives  in  honest  doubt." 
Some  men  have  more  faith  than  they  suppose,  while 
others  certainly  have  much  less.  One  has  a  name  to 
live,  and  yet  is  d#ad  ;  another,  perchance,  has  a  name 
to  die,  and  yet  is  alive  to  God  through  Jesus  Christ. 
There  are  endless  complications,  self-contradictions, 
and  misunderstandings  in  human  nature.  "  Many  are 
first "  in  the  ranks  of  religious  profession  and  notoriety, 
"which  shall  be  last,  and  the  last  first."  We  make 
the  largest  allowance  for  this  element  of  uncertainty 
in  the  line  that  bounds  faith  from  unfaith ;  "  The  Lord 
knoweth  them  that  are  His."  No  intellectual  difficulty, 
no  mere  misunderstanding,  will  ultimately  or  for  long 
separate  between  God  and  the  soul  that  He  has  made. 

It  is  antipathy  that  separates.  "They  did  not  like 
to  retain  God  in  their  knowledge " :  that  is  Paul's 
explanation  of  the  ungodliness  and  vice  of  the  ancient 
world.     And  it  holds  good  still  in  countless  instances. 

*  IIoioOi'Tes  rd  deXi^fxara  ttjs  (rapKbs  Kal  tQv  diavpiQv  (ver.  3). 


I02  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

"  Numbers  in  this  bad  world  talk  loudly  against  religion 
in  order  to  encourage  each  other  in  sin,  because  they 
need  encouragement.  They  know  that  they  ought  to 
be  other  than  they  are  ;  but  are  glad  to  avail  themselves 
of  anything  that  looks  like  argument,  to  overcome  their 
consciences  withal "  (Newman).  The  fashionable  scep- 
ticism of  the  day  too  often  conceals  an  inner  revolt 
against  the  moral  demands  of  the  Christian  life ;  it  is 
the  pretext  of  a  carnal  mind,  which  is  ''  enmity  against 
God,  because  it  is  not  subject  to  His  law."  Christ's 
sentence  upon  unbelief  as  He  knew  it  was  this  :  "  Light 
is  come  into  the  world  ;  and  men  love  darkness  rather 
than  light,  because  their  deeds  are  evil."  So  said  the 
keenest  and  the  kindest  Judge  of  men.  If  we  are 
refusing  Him  our  faith,  let  us  be  very  sure  that  this 
condemnation  does  not  touch  ourselves.  Is  there  no 
passion  that  bribes  and  suborns  the  intellect  ?  no  desire 
in  the  soul  that  dreads  His  entrance  ?  no  evil  deeds 
that  shelter  themselves  from  His  accusing  light  ? 

When  the  apostle  says  of  his  Gentile  readers  that 
they  "  once  walked  in  the  way  of  the  age,  according  to 
the  course  of  this  world,*  according  to  the  prince  of 
the  power  of  the  air,"  the  former  part  of  his  statement 
is  clear  enough.  The  age  in  which  he  lived  was 
godless  to  the  last  degree ;  the  stream  of  the  world's 
life  ran  in  turbid  course  toward  moral  ruin.  But  the 
second  clause  is  obscure.  The  ''  prince  "  (or  "  ruler  ") 
who  guides  the  world  along  its  career  of  rebellion  is 
manifestly  Satan,  the  spirit  of  darkness  and  hate  whom 
St  Paul  entitles  "the  god  of  this  world"  (2  Cor.  iv.  4), 
and  in  whom  Jesus  recognized,  under  the  name  of  '*  the 
prince  of  the  world,"  His  great  antagonist  (John  xiv.  30). 

*  Perhaps  this  double  rendering  may  bring  out  the  force  of  Kaja  tov 
alQva  TOV  Kda-fxov  toIjtov. 


[-6.]  FROM  DEATH   TO  LIFE.  103 


But  what  has  this  spirit  of  evil  to  do  with  "  the 
air  "  ?  The  Jewish  rabbis  supposed  that  the  terrestrial 
atmosphere  was  Satan's  abode,  that  it  was  peopled  by 
demons  flitting  about  invisibly  in  the  encompassing 
element.  But  this  is  a  notion  foreign  to  Scripture — 
certainly  not  contained  in  chapter  vi.  12 — and,  in  its 
bare  physical  sense,  without  point  or  relevance  to  this 
passage.  There  follows  in  immediate  apposition  to 
"the  domain  of  the  air,  the  spirit  that  now  works  in 
the  sons  of  disobedience."  Surely,  the  air  here  par- 
takes (if  it  be  only  here)  of  the  figurative  significance 
of  spirit  (i.e.  breath).  St  Paul  refines  the  Jewish  idea 
of  evil  spirits  dwelling  in  the  surrounding  atmosphere 
into  an  ethical  conception  oi  the  atmosphere  of  the  world, 
as  that  from  which  the  sons  of  disobedience  draw  their 
breath  and  receive  the  spirit  that  inspires  them.  Here 
lies,  in  truth,  the  dominion  of  Satan.  In  other  words, 
Satan  constituted  the  Zeitgeist. 

As  Beck  profoundly  remarks  upon  this  text  :  *  "The 
Power  of  the  air  is  a  fitting  designation  for  the  prevail- 
ing spirit  of  the  times,  whose  influence  spreads  itself 
like  a  miasma  through  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the 
world.  It  manifests  itself  as  a  contagious  nature-power  ; 
and  a  spiritus  rector  works  within  it,  which  takes  pos- 
session of  the  world  of  men,  alike  in  individuals  and 
in  society,  and  assumes  the  direction  of  it.  The  form 
of  expression  here  employed  is  based  on  the  concep- 
tion of  evil  peculiar  to  Scripture.  In  Scripture,  evil 
and  the  principle  of  evil  are  not  conceived  in  a  purely 
spiritual  way ;  nor  could  this  be  the  case  in  a  world  of 
fleshly  constitution,  where  the  spiritual  has  the  sensuous 
for  its  basis  and  its  vehicle.     Spiritual  evil  exists  as  a 

*  In  the  Y"^^^^\\mo\\?,  Erkliirtmg  des  Briefes  Pauli  an  die  Epheser — a 
valuable  exposition,  marked  by  Beck's  theological  acumen  and  lucidity. 


I04  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


power  immanent  in  cosmical  nature."*  Concerning 
great  tracts  of  the  earth,  and  large  sections  even  of 
Christianized  communities,  we  must  still  confess  with 
St  John  :  "The  world  Heth  in  the  Evil  One."  The  air 
is  impregnated  with  the  infection  of  sin ;  f  its  germs 
float  about  us  constantly,  and  wherever  they  find 
lodgement  they  set  up  their  deadly  fever.  Sin  is  the 
malarial  poison  native  to  our  soil ;  it  is  an  epidemic 
that  runs  its  course  through  the  entire  "age  of  this 
world." 

Above  this  feverous,  sin-laden  atmosphere  the  apostle 
sees  God's  anger  brooding  in  threatening  clouds.  For 
our  trespasses  and  sins  are,  after  all,  not  forced  on  us 
by  our  environment.  Those  offences  by  which  we 
provoke  God,  lie  in  our  nature ;  they  are  no  mere 
casual  acts,  they  belong  to  our  bias  and  disposition. 
Sin  is  a  constitutional  malady.  There  exists  a  bad 
element  in  our  human  nature,  which  corresponds  but 
too  truly  to  the  course  and  current  of  the  world  around 
us.  This  the  apostle  acknowledges  for  himself  and  his 
law-honouring  Jewish  kindred:  "We  were  by  nature 
children  of  wrath,  even  as  the  rest."  So  he  wrote  in 
the  sad  confession  of  Romans  vii.  14-23  :  "  I  see  a 
different  law  in  my  members,  warring  against  the  law 
of  my  mind  and  bringing  me  into  captivity  to  the  law 
of  sin  which  is  in  my  members." 

It  is  upon  this  "other  law,"  the  contradiction  of  His 
own,  upon  the  sinfulness  beneath  the  sin,  that  God's 
displeasure  rests.  Human  law  notes  the  overt  act: 
"  the  Lord  looketh  upon  the  heart."     There  is  nothing 


*  The  (t>iaei  of  verse  3  thus  corresponds  to  the  e^ovaia  rod  depos  of 
verse  2.  "  Sin  entered  into  ;(Ae  uwrhV^  (^K6a/xos),  Rom.  v.  12,  which 
signifies  more  than  the  nature  of  individual  men. 

t  I  John  iii.  8 ;  comp.  John  viii.  41-44. 


ii.  1-6.]  FROM  DEATH   TO  LIFE.  105 


more  bitter  and  humiliating  to  a  conscientious  man  than 
the  conviction  of  this  penetrating  Divine  insight,  this 
detection  to  himself  of  his  incurable  sin  and  the  hollow- 
ness  of  his  righteousness  before  God.  How  it  confounds 
the  proud  Pharisee  to  learn  that  he  is  as  other  men 
are, — and  even  as  this  publican  ! 

''  The  sons  of  disobedience  "  must  needs  be  '*  children 
of  wrath."  All  sin,  whether  in  nature  or  practice,  is 
the  object  of  God's  fixed  displeasure.  It  cannot  be 
matter  of  indifference  to  our  Father  in  heaven  that  His 
human  children  are  disobedient  toward  Himself.  Child- 
ren of  His  favour  or  anger  we  are  each  one  of  us,  and 
at  every  moment.  We  "keep  His  commandments, 
and  abide  in  His  love  " ;  or  we  do  not  keep  them,  and 
are  excluded.  It  is  His  smile  or  frown  that  makes  the 
sunshine  or  the  gloom  of  our  inner  life.  How  strange 
that  men  should  argue  that  God's  love  forbids  His 
wrath  !  It  is,  in  truth,  the  cause  of  it.  I  could  neither 
love  nor  fear  a  God  who  did  not  care  enough  about  me 
to  be  angry  with  me  when  I  sin.  If  my  child  does 
wilful  wrong,  if  by  some  act  of  greed  or  passion  he 
imperils  his  moral  future  and  destroys  the  peace  and 
well-being  of  the  house,  shall  I  not  be  grieved  with 
him,  with  an  anger  proportioned  to  the  love  I  bear 
him  ?  How  much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father — 
how  much  more  justly  and  wisely  and  mercifully  ! 

St  Paul  feels  no  contradiction  between  the  words  of 
verse  3  and  those  that  follow.  The  same  God  whose 
wrath  burns  against  the  sons  of  disobedience  while 
they  so  continue,  is  "  rich  in  mercy "  and  *'  loved  us 
even  when  we  were  dead  in  our  trespasses ! "  He 
pities  evil  men,  and  to  save  them  spared  not  His  Son 
from  death;  but  Almighty  God,  the  Father  of  glory, 
hates  and   loathes  the  evil  that  is   in  them,   and   has 


io6  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

determined  that   if  they  will   not  let  it  go  they  shall 
perish  with  it. 

II.  Such  was  the  death  in  which  Paul  and  his  readers 
once  had  lain.  But  God  in  His  ''great  love"  has 
^^  made  them  to  live  along  with  the  Christ." 

How  wonderful  to  have  witnessed  a  resurrection  :  to 
see  the  pale  cheek  of  the  little  maid,  Jairus'  daughter, 
flush  again  with  the  tints  of  life,  and  the  still  frame 
begin  to  stir,  and  the  eyes  softly  open — and  she  looks 
upon  the  face  of  Jesus  !  or  to  watch  Lazarus,  four  days 
dead,  coming  out  of  his  tomb,  slowly,  and  as  one  dream- 
ing, with  hands  and  feet  bound  in  the  grave-clothes. 
Still  more  marvellous  to  have  beheld  the  Prince  of  Life 
at  the  dawn  of  the  third  day  issue  from  Joseph's  grave, 
bursting  His  prison-gates  and  stepping  forth  in  new- 
risen  glory  as  one  refreshed  from  slumber. 

But  there  are  things  no  less  divine,  had  we  eyes  for 
their  marvel,  that  take  place  upon  this  earth  day  by 
day.  When  a  human  soul  awakes  from  its  trespasses 
and  sins,  when  the  love  of  God  is  poured  into  a  heart 
that  was  cold  and  empty,  when  the  Spirit  of  God 
breathes  into  a  spirit  lying  powerless  and  buried  in  the 
flesh,  there  is  as  true  a  rising  from  the  dead  as  when 
Jesus  our  Lord  came  out  from  His  sepulchre.  It  was 
of  this  spiritual  resurrection  that  He  said  :  '*  The  hour 
Cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  God,  and  they  that  hear  shall  live." 
Having  said  that,  He  added,  concerning  the  bodily 
resurrection  of  mankind  :  ''  Marvel  not  at  this  ;  for  the 
hour  Cometh,  in  which  all  that  are  in  the  tombs  shall 
hear  His  voice,  and  shall  come  forth  ! "  The  second 
wonder  only  matches  and  consummates  the  first  (John 
V.  24-28). 


-6.]  FROM  DEATH   TO  LIFE.  107 


"  This  is  life  eternal,  to  know  God  the  Father," — 
the  life,  as  the  apostle  elsewhere  calls  it,  that  is 
*'life  indeed."  It  came  to  St  Paul  by  a  new  crea- 
tion, when,  as  he  describes  it,  "  God  who  said.  Light 
shall  shine  out  of  darkness,  shined  in  our  hearts,  to 
give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  His  glory  in  the 
face  of  Jesus  Christ."  We  are  born  again — the  God- 
consciousness  is  born  within  us  :  an  hour  mysterious 
and  decisive  as  that  in  which  our  personal  conscious- 
ness first  emerged  and  the  soul  knew  itself.  Now 
it  knows  God.  Like  Jacob  at  Peniel  it  says:  *'I  have 
seen  God  face  to  face ;  and  my  life  is  preserved."  God 
and  the  soul  have  met  in  Christ — and  are  reconciled. 

The  words  the  apostle  uses — gave  us  life — raised  us 
up — seated  us  in  the  heavenly  places — embrace  the  whole 
range  of  salvation.  "  Those  united  with  Christ  are 
through  grace  delivered  from  their  state  of  death,  not 
only  in  the  sense  that  the  resurrection  and  exaltation 
of  Christ  redound  to  their  benefit  as  Divinely  imputed 
to  them  ;  but  by  the  life-giving  energy  of  God  they  are 
brought  out  of  their  condition  of  death  into  a  new  and 
actual  state  of  life.  The  act  of  grace  is  an  act  of  the 
Divine  power  and  might,  not  a  mere  judicial  declara- 
tion "  (Beck).  This  comprehensive  action  of  the  Divine 
grace  upon  believing  men  takes  place  by  a  constant  and 
constantly  deepening  union  of  the  soul  with  Christ. 
This  is  well  expressed  by  A.  Monod :  "  The  entire 
history  of  the  Son  of  man  is  reproduced  in  the  man 
who  believes  in  Him,  not  by  a  simple  moral  analogy, 
but  by  a  spiritual  communication  which  is  the  true 
secret  of  our  justification  as  well  as  of  our  sanctification, 
and  indeed  of  our  whole  salvation." 

There  is  no  repetition  in  the  three  verbs  employed, 
which  are  alike  extended  by  the  Greek  preposition  with 


[o8  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


{syn).  The  first  sentence  (raised  us  up  with  the  Christ) 
virtually  includes  everything;  it  shows  us  one  with  Christ 
who  lives  evermore  to  God.  The  second  sentence  gathers 
into  its  scope  all  believers — the  you  of  verse  i  and  the 
we  of  verse  3  :  "  He  raised  us  up  together,  and  together 
made  us  sit  in  the  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus." 
Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  our  epistle  than  this 
turn  of  thought.  To  the  conception  of  our  union  with 
Christ  in  His  celestial  life,  it  adds  that  of  our  union 
zviih  each  other  in  Christ  as  sharers  in  common  of  that 
life.  Christ  ''reconciles  us  in  one  body  unto  God" 
(ver.  16).  We  sit  not  alone,  but  together  in  the 
heavenly  places.  This  is  the  fulness  of  life;  this 
completes  our  salvation. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

SAVED  FOR  AN  END. 

"  That  in  the  ages  to  come  He  might  show  the  exceeding  riches  of 
His  grace  in  kindness  toward  us  in  Christ  Jesus.  For  by  grace  have  ye 
been  saved  through  faith ;  and  that  not  of  yourselves,  //  is  the  gift  of 
God  :  not  of  works,  that  no  man  shoukl  glory.  For  we  are  His  work- 
manship, created  in  Christ  Jesus  for  good  works,  which  God  afore 
prepared  that  we  should  walk  in  them." — Eph.  ii.  7- 10. 

THE  plan  which  God  has  formed  for  men  in  Christ 
is  of  great  dimensions  every  way, — in  its  length 
no  less  than  in  its  breadth  and  height.  He  "  raised  us 
up  and  seated  us  together  [Gentiles  with  Jews]  in  the 
heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus,  that  in  the  ages  which 
are  coming  on  He  might  show  the  surpassing  riches  of 
His  grace."  All  the  races  of  mankind  and  all  future 
ages  are  embraced  in  the  redeeming  purpose,  and  are 
to  share  in  its  boundless  wealth.  Nor  are  the  ages 
past  excluded  from  its  operations.  God  "  afore  pre- 
pared the  good  works  in  which"  He  summons  us  to 
walk.  The  highway  of  the  new  life  has  been  in 
building  since  time  began. 

Thus  large  and  limitless  is  the  range  of  ''  the  purpose 
and  grace  given  us  in  Christ  Jesus  before  times 
eternal "  (2  Tim.  i.  9).  But  what  strikes  us  most  in 
this  passage  is  the  exuberance  of  the  grace  itself. 
Twice  over  the  apostle  exclaims,  ''  By  grace  you  are 
saved  "  :  once  in  verse  5,  in  an  eager,  almost  jealous 

109 


no  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

parenthesis,  where  he  hastens  to  assure  the  readers  of 
their  deUverance  from  the  fearful  condition  just  des- 
cribed (vv.  1-3,  5).  Again,  dehberately  and  with  full 
definition  he  states  the  same  fact,  in  verse  8  :  **  For  by 
grace  you  are  saved,  through  faith ;  and  this  is  not  of 
yourselves,  it  is  the  gift  of  God.  It  does  not  come  of 
works,  to  the  end  that  none  may  boast." 

These  words  place  us  on  familiar  ground.  We  re- 
cognize the  Paul  of  Galatians  and  Romans,  the  dialect 
and  accent  of  the  apostle  of  salvation  by  faith.  But 
scarcely  anywhere  do  we  find  this  wonder-working  grace 
so  affluently  described.  "  God  being  rich  in  mercy,  for 
the  great  love  wherewith  He  loved  us — the  exceeding 
riches  of  His  grace,  shown  in  kindness  toward  us — the 
gift  of  God."  Mercy,  love,  kindness,  grace,  gift :  what  a 
constellation  is  here  !  These  terms  present  the  character 
of  God  in  the  gospel  under  the  most  delightful  aspects, 
and  in  vivid  contrast  to  the  picture  of  our  human  state 
outlined  in  the  beginning  of  the  chapter. 

Mercy  denotes  the  Divine  pitifulness  towards  feeble, 
suffering  men,  akin  to  those  *'  compassions  of  God  "  to 
which  the  apostle  repeatedly  appeals.*  It  is  a  constant 
attribute  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  fills  much 
the    same  place   there   that   grace    does    in    the    New. 

'  Of  mercy  and  judgement "  do  the  Psalmists  sing — of 
mercy  most.  Out  of  the  thunder  and  smoke  of  Sinai 
He  declared  His  name  :  "  Jehovah,  a  God  full  of  com- 
passion and  gracious,  slow  to  anger,  and  plenteous  in 
mercy  and  truth,  keeping  mercy  for  thousands."     The 

dread  of  God's  justice,  the  sense  of  His  dazzling  hoUness 


*  Rom.  xii.  I ;  2  Cor.  i.  3 ;  Phil.  i.  8,  ii.  i ;  comp.  Luke  i.  78.  The 
olKTLpixol  Tov  Qeov,  (yir'Sdyxfo.  /cat  oiKTcpfioi,  rendered  in  our  Version 
"  mercies  of  God,"  denotes  something  even  more  affecting, — God's  sense 
of  the  woefulness  of  human  life, — "the  pitying  tenderness  Divine." 


ii.7-io.]  SAVED  FOR  AN  END.  iii 

and  almightiness  threw  His  mercy  into  bright  relief  and 
gave  to  it  an  infinite  preciousness.  It  is  the  contrast 
which  brings  in  ''  mercy  "  here,  in  verse  4,  by  antithesis 
to  "wrath"  (ver.  3).*  These  quahties  are  complement- 
ary. The  sternest  and  strongest  natures  are  the  most 
compassionate.  God  is  "  rich  in  mercy."  The  wealth 
of  His  Being  pours  itself  out  in  the  exquisite  tender- 
nesses, the  unwearied  forbearance  and  forgivingness 
of  His  compassion  towards  men.  The  Judge  of  all  the 
earth,  whose  hate  of  evil  is  the  fire  of  hell,  is  gentler 
than  the  softest-hearted  mother, — rich  in  mercy  as  He 
is  grand  and  terrible  in  wrath. 

God's  mercy  regards  us  as  we  are  weak  and  miser- 
able :  His  love  regards  us  as  we  are,  in  spite  of  trespass 
and  offence.  His  offspring, — objects  of  ^'much  love" 
amid  much  displeasure,  "  even  when  we  were  dead 
through  our  trespasses."  What  does  the  story  of  the 
prodigal  son  mean  but  this  ?  and  what  Christ's  great 
word  to  Nicodemus  (John  iii.  16)  ? — Grace  and  kindness 
a  -e  love's  executive.  Grace  is  love  in  administration, 
love  counteracting  sin  and  seeking  our  salvation. 
Christ  is  the  embodiment  of  grace;  the  cross  its 
supreme  expression;  the  gospel  its  message  to  man- 
kind; and  Paul  himself  its  trophy  and  witness.!  The 
"overpassing  riches"  of  grace  is  that  affluence  of 
wealth  in  which  through  Christ  it  "  superabounded  "  to 
the  apostolic  age  and  has  outdone  the  magnitude  of  sin 
(Rom.  V.  20),  in  such  measure  that  St  Paul  sees  future 
ages  gazing  with  wonder  at  its  benefactions  to  himself 
and  his  fellow-believers.  Shown  "  in  kindness  toward 
us,"  he   says, — in   a   condescending    fatherhness,   that 

*  Comp.  Rom.  ix.  22,  23. 

t  On  ^ra^^,  comp.  The  Epistle  to  the  Ga lat tans  (ExY>ositox's  Bible), 
Chapter  X. 


112  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

forgets  its  anger  and  softens  its  old  severity  into  com- 
fort and  endearment.  God's  kindness  is  the  touch 
of  His  hand,  the  accent  of  His  voice,  the  cherishing 
breath  of  His  Spirit.  Finally,  this  generosity  of  the 
Divine  grace,  this  infinite  goodwill  of  God  toward  men, 
takes  expression  in  the  gift — the  gift  of  Christ,  the  gift 
of  righteousness  (Rom.  v.  15-18),  the  gift  of  eternal 
life  (Rom.  vi.  23) ;  or — regarded,  as  it  is  here,  in 
the  light  of  experience  and  possession — the  gift  of 
salvation. 

The  opposition  of  gift  and  debt^  of  gratuitous  salvation 
through  faith  to  salvation  earned  by  works  of  law, 
belongs  to  the  marrow  of  St  Paul's  divinity.  The  teach- 
ing of  the  great  evangelical  epistles  is  condensed  into 
the  brief  words  of  verses  8  and  9.  The  reason  here 
assigned  for  God's  deaUng  with  men  by  way  of  gift  and 
making  them  absolutely  debtors — "  lest  any  one  should 
boast" — was  forced  upon  the  apostle's  mind  by  the 
stubborn  pride  of  legalism ;  it  is  stated  in  terms  identi- 
cal with  those  of  the  earlier  letters.  Men  will  glory  :'n 
their  virtues  before  God ;  they  flaunt  the  rags  of  their 
own  righteousness,  if  any  such  pretext,  even  the 
slightest,  remains  to  them.  We  sinners  are  a  proud 
race,  and  our  pride  is  oftentimes  the  worst  of  our  sins. 
Therefore  God  humbles  us  by  His  compassion.  He 
makes  to  us  a  free  gift  of  His  righteousness,  and 
excludes  every  contribution  from  our  store  of  merit ; 
for  if  we  could  supply  anything,  we  should  inevitably 
boast  as  though  all  were  our  own.  We  must  be  content 
to  receive  mercy,  love,  grace,  kindness — everything, 
without  deserving  the  least  fraction  of  the  immense 
sum.  How  it  strips  our  vanity ;  how  it  crushes  us  to 
the  dust — "  the  weight  of  pardoning  love  I  " 

Concerning  the  office  oi  faith  in  salvation  we  have 


"•7-10.]  SAVED  FOR  AN  END.  113 


already  spoken  in  Chapter  IV.*  It  is  on  the  objective 
fact  rather  than  the  subjective  means  of  salvation  that 
the  apostle  lays  stress  in  this  passage.  His  readers 
do  not  seem  to  have  realized  sufficiently  what  God  has 
given  them  and  the  greatness  of  the  salvation  already 
accomplished.  They  measured  inadequately  the  power 
which  had  touched  and  changed  their  lives  (i.  19). 
St  Paul  has  shown  them  the  depth  to  which  they  were 
formerly  sunk,  and  the  height  to  which  they  have  been 
raised  (vv.  1-6).  He  can  therefore  assure  them,  and  he 
does  it  with  redoubled  emphasis  :  ''  You  are  saved;  By 
grace  you  are  saved  men  !" f  Not,  "  You  will  be  saved"; 
nor,  ''  You  were  saved  "  ;  nor,  '<  You  are  in  course  of 

salvation," — for  salvation  has  many  moods  and  tenses, 

but,  in  the  perfect  passive  tense,  he  asserts  the  glorious 
accomplished  /act  With  the  same  reassuring  emphasis 
in  chapter  i.  7  he  declared,  "We  have  redemption  in 
His  blood,  the  forgiveness  of  our  trespasses." 

Here  is  St  Paul's  doctrine  of  Assurance.  It  was 
laid  down  by  Christ  Himself  when  He  said  :  "  He  that 
believeth  on  the  Son  of  God  hath  eternal  life."  This 
subhme  confidence  is  the  ruling  note  of  St  John's 
great  epistle  :  ''  We  know  that  we  are  in  Him.  ...  We 
know  that  we  have  passed  out  of  death  into  life. 
This  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our 
faith."  It  was  this  confidence  of  present  salvation 
that  made  the  Church  irresistible.  With  its  foundation 
secure,   the  house  of  life  can  be  steadily  and   calmly 


*  Compare  also,  on  Faith,  T/ie  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  (Expositor's 
Bible),  Chapters  X.-XII.  and  XV. 

t  'Eo-T^  (reaoiafiivoL  :  for  the  peculiar  emphasis  of  this  form  of  the 
verb,  implying  a  settled  fact,  an  assured  state,  compare  ver.  12, 
^re  .  .  .  dirr)\\oTpiu)fi^poi ;  Col.  ii.  10;  Gal.  ii.  11,  iv.  3;  2  Cor. 
iv.  3.  etc. 


8 


114  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

built  up.  Under  the  shelter  of  the  full  assurance  of 
faith,  in  the  sunshine  of  God's  love  felt  in  the  heart, 
all  spiritual  virtues  bloom  and  flourish.  But  with  a 
faith  hesitant,  distracted,  that  is  sure  of  no  doctrine  in  the 
creed  and  cannot  plant  a  firm  foot  anywhere,  nothing 
prospers  in  the  soul  or  in  the  Church.  Oh  for  the  clear 
accent,  the  ringing,  joyous  note  of  apostolic  assurance  ! 
We  want  a  faith  not  loud,  but  deep  ;  a  faith  not  born  of 
sentiment  and  human  sympathy,  but  that  comes  from 
the  vision  of  the  living  God  ;  a  faith  whose  rock  and 
corner-stone  is  neither  the  Church  nor  the  Bible,  but 
Christ  Jesus  Himself. 

Greatly  do  we  need,  hke  the  Asian  disciples  of  Paul 
and  John,  to  "assure  our  hearts  "  before  God.  With 
death  confronting  us,  with  the  hideous  evil  of  the  world 
oppressing  us ;  when  the  air  is  laden  with  the  contagion 
of  sin ;  when  the  faith  of  the  strongest  wears  the  cast 
of  doubt ;  when  the  word  of  promise  shines  dimly 
through  the  haze  of  an  all-encompassing  scepticism  and 
a  hundred  voices  say,  in  mockery  or  grief.  Where  is 
now  thy  God  ?  when  the  world  proclaims  us  lost,  our 
faith  refuted,  our  gospel  obsolete  and  useless, — then  is 
the  time  for  the  Christian  assurance  to  recover  its  first 
energy  and  to  rise  again  in  radiant  strength  from  the 
heart  of  the  Church,  from  the  depths  of  its  mystic  life 
where  it  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 
y  Yoii  are  saved  !  cries  the  apostle  ;  not  forgetting  that 
\  his  readers  have  their  battle  to  fight,  and  many  hazards 
yet  to  run  (vi.  10-13).  But  they  hold  the  earnest  of 
victory,  the  foretaste  of  Hfe  eternal.  In  spirit  they  sit 
with  Christ  in  the  heavenly  places.  Pain  and  death, 
temptation,  persecution,  the  vicissitudes  of  earthly 
history,  by  these  God  m-eans  to  perfect  that  which  He 
has  begun  in  His  saints — '' if  you  continue  in  the  faith, 


ii.  7-IO.]  SAVED  FOR  AN  END.  115 

grounded  and  firm"  (Col.  i.  23).  That  condition  is 
expressed,  or  implied,  in  all  assurance  of  final  salvation. 
It  is  a  condition  which  excites  to  watchfulness,  but  can 
never  cause  misgiving  to  a  loyal  heart.  God  is  for  us  ! 
He  justifies  us,  and  counts  us  His  elect.  Christ  Jesus 
who  died  is  risen  and  seated  at  the  right  hand  of  God, 
and  there  intercedes  for  us.     Quis  separabit?^ 

This  is  the  epistle  of  the  Church  and  of  humanity. 
It  dwells  on  the  grand,  objective  aspects  of  the  truth, 
rather  than  upon  its  subjective  experiences.  It  do^s_ 
not  invite  us  tjD  resi  in  the  comforts  and  delights  of 
gracgj^  but  toJift  up  our  eyes  and  see  whither  Christjias 
translated  us  and  what  is  the  kingdom  that  we  possess 
in  Him.  God  "  quickened  us  together  with  the  Christ "  : 
He  ''raised  us  up,  He  made  us  to  sit  in  the  heavenly 
places  in  Christ  Jesus."  Henceforth  "  our  citizenship 
is  in  heaven  "  (Phil.  iii.  20). 

This  is  the  inspiring  thought  of  the  third  group  of 
St  Paul's  epistles  ;  we  heard  it  in  the  first  note  of  his 
song  of  praise  (i.  3).  It  suppHes  the  principle  from 
which  St  Paul  unfolds  the  beautiful  conception  of  the 
Christian  hfe  contained  in  the  third  chapter  of  the 
companion  letter  to  the  Colossians  :  "  Your  life  is  hid 
with  the  Christ  in  God "  ;  therefore  "  seek  the  things 
that  are  above,  where  He  is."  We  live  in  two  worlds 
at  once.  Heaven  lies  about  us  in  this  new  mystic 
childhood  of  our  spirit.  There  our  names  are  written  ; 
thither  our  thoughts  and  hopes  resort.  Our  treasure  is 
there ;  our  heart  we  have  lodged  there,  with  Christ  in 
God.     He  is  there,  the  Lord  of  the  Spirit,  from  whom 

*  Rom.  viii.  31-39;  comp.  vv.  9-17  ;  also  i  Thess.  v.  23,  24;  2 
Thess.  iii.  3-5  ;  i  Cor.  i.  4-9  ;  Phil.  i.  6,  iii.  13,  14;  2  Tim.  i.  12,  iv.  18 
for  St  Paul's  doctrine  of  Assurance, 


\ 


1 16  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

we  draw  each  moment  the  Hfe  that  flows  into  His 
members.  In  the  greatness  of  His  love  conquering 
sin  and  death,  time  and  space,  He  is  with  us  to  the 
world's  end.  May  we  not  say  that  we,  too,  are  with 
Him  and  shall  be  with  Him  always  ?  So  we  reckon 
in  the  logic  of  our  faith  and  at  the  height  of  our  high 
calHng,  though  the  soul  creeps  and  drudges  upon  the 
lower  levels. 

"  With  Him  we  are  gone  up  on  high, 
Since  He  is  ours  and  we  are  His  ; 
With  Him  we  reign  above  the  sky, 
We  walk  upon  our  subject  seas  ! " 

In  his  lofty  flights  of  thought  the  apostle  always  has 
some  practical  and  homely  end  in  view.  The  earthly 
and  heavenly,  the  mystical  and  the  matter-of-fact  were 
not  distant  and  repugnant,  but  interfused  in  his  mind. 
From  the  celestial  heights  of  the  life  hidden  with  Christ 
in  God  (ver.  6),  he  brings  us  down  in  a  moment  and 
without  any  sense  of  discrepancy  to  the  prosaic  level 
of  "  good  works  "  (ver.  10).  The  love  which  viewed  us 
from  eternity,  the  counsels  of  Him  who  works  all  things 
in  all,  enter  into  the  humblest  daily  duties. 

Grace,  moreover,  sets  us  great  tasks.  There  should 
be  something  to  show  in  deed  and  life  for  the  wealth 
of  kindness  spent  upon  us,  some  visible  and  commen- 
surate result  of  the  vast  preparations  of  the  gospel  plan. 
Of  this  result  the  apostle  saw  the  earnest  in  the  work 
of  faith  wrought  by  his  Gentile  Churches. 

St  Paul  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  undervalue 
human  effort,  or  disparage  good  work  of  any  sort.  It 
is,  in  his  view,  the  end  aimed  at  in  all  that  God  bestows 
on  His  people,  in  all  that  He  Himself  works  in  them. 
Only  let  this  end  be  sought  in  God's  way  and  order. 
Man's  doings  must  be  the  fruit  and  not  the  root  of  his 


ii.7-io;j  SAVED  FOR  AN  END.  117 

salvation.  "Not  0/  works,"  but  "/or  good  works" 
were  believers  chosen.  '* This  little  word  for"  says 
Monod,  ''reconciles  St  Paul  and  St  James  better  than 
all  the  commentators."  God  has  not  raised  us  up  to 
sit  idly  in  the  heavenly  places  lost  in  contemplation, 
or  to  be  the  useless  pensioners  of  grace.  He  sends  us 
forth  to  "  walk  in  the  works,  prepared  for  us," — equipped 
to  fight  Christ's  battles,  to  till  His  fields,  to  labour  in 
the  service  of  building  His  Church. 

The  "  workmanship  "  of  our  Version  suggests  an  idea 
foreign  to  the  passage.  The  apostle  is  not  thinking  of 
the  Divine  art  or  skill  displayed  in  man's  creation  ;  but 
of  the  simple  fact  that  "God  made  man"  (Gen.  i.  27). 
"We  are  His  making,  created  in  Christ  Jesus."  The 
"  preparation  "  to  which  he  refers  in  verse  10  leads  us 
back  to  that  primeval  election  of  God's  sons  in  Christ 
for  which  we  gave  thanks  at  the  outset  (i.  3),  There 
are  not  two  creations,  the  second  formed  upon  the  ruin 
and  failure  of  the  first;  but  one  grand  design  through- 
out. Redemption  is  creation  re-affirmed.  The  new 
creation,  as  we  call  it,  restores  and  consummates  the 
old.  When  God  raised  His  Son  from  the  dead,  He 
vindicated  His  original  purpose  in  raising  man  from 
the  dust  a  living  soul.  He  has  not  forsaken  the  work 
of  His  hands  nor  forgone  His  original  plan,  which 
took  account  of  all  our  wilfulness  and  sin.  God  in 
making  us  meant  us  to  do  good  work  in  His  world. 
From  the  world's  foundation  down  to  the  present 
moment  He  who  worketh  all  in  all  has  been  working 
for  this  end — most  of  all  in  the  revelation  of  His  grace 
in  Jesus  Christ. 

Far  backward  in  the  past,  amid  the  secrets  of 
creation,  lay  the  beginnings  of  God's  grace  to  mankind. 
Far  onward  in  the  future  shines  its  lustre  revealed  in 


ii8  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

the  first  Christian  age.  The  apostle  has  gained  some 
insight  into  those  ''times  and  seasons"  which  formerly 
were  veiled  from  him.  In  his  earliest  letters,  to  the 
Thessalonians  and  Corinthians,  St  Paul  echoes  our 
Lord's  warning,  never  out  of  season,  that  we  should 
''  watch,  for  the  hour  is  at  hand."  Maran  atha  is  his 
watchword  :  ''  Our  Lord  cometh  ;  the  time  is  short." 
Nor  does  that  note  cease  to  the  end.  But  when  in 
this  epistle  he  writes  of  ''  the  ages  that  are  coming  on," 
and  of  "  all  the  generations  of  the  age  of  the  ages " 
(iii.  2i),  there  is  manifestly  some  considerable  period  of 
duration  before  his  eyes.  He  sees  something  of  the 
extent  of  the  world's  coming  history,  something  of  the 
magnitude  of  the  field  that  the  future  will  afibrd  for  the 
unfolding  of  God's  designs. 

In  those  approaching  aeons  he  foresees  that  the 
apostolic  dispensation  will  play  a  conspicuous  part. 
Unborn  ages  will  be  blessed  in  the  blessing  now 
descending  upon  Jews  and  Gentiles  through  Christ 
Jesus.  So  marvellous  is  the  display  of  God's  kindness 
toward  them,  that  all  the  future  will  pay  homage  to  it. 
The  overflowing  wealth  of  blessing  poured  upon  St 
Paul  and  the  first  Churches  had  an  end  in  view  that 
reached  beyond  themselves,  an  end  worthy  of  the  Giver, 
worthy  of  the  magnitude  of  His  plans  and  of  His 
measureless  love.  If  all  this  was  theirs — this  fulness  of 
God  exceeding  the  utmost  they  had  asked  or  thought — 
it  is  because  God  means  to  convey  it  through  them  to 
multitudes  besides  !  There  is  no  limit  to  the  grace  that 
God  will  impart  to  men  and  to  Churches  who  thus 
reason,  who  receive  His  gifts  in  this  generous  and 
communicative  spirit.  The  apostolic  Church  chants 
with  Mary  at  the  Annunciation  :  "  For,  behold,  from 
henceforth  all  generations  shall  call  me  blessed  ! " 


ii.7-io.]  SAVED  FOR  AN  END.  119 

Never  was  any  prediction  better  fulfilled.  This  spot 
of  history  shines  with  a  light  before  which  every  other 
shows  pale  and  commonplace.  The  companions  of 
Jesus,  the  humble  fraternities  of  the  first  Christian 
century  have  been  the  object  of  reverent  interest  and 
intent  research  on  the  part  of  all  centuries  since. 
Their  history  is  scrutinized  from  all  sides  with  a  zeal 
and  industry  which  the  most  pressing  subjects  of  the 
day  hardly  command.  For  we  feel  that  these  men 
hold  the  secret  of  the  world's  life.  The  key  to  the 
treasures  we  all  long  for  is  in  their  hands.  As  time 
goes  on  and  the  stress  of  life  deepens,  men  will  turn 
with  yet  fonder  hope  to  the  age  of  Jesus  Christ.  ''And 
many  nations  will  say  :  Come,  and  let  us  go  up  to  the 
mountain  of  the  Lord,  to  the  house  of  the  God  of 
Jacob.  And  He  will  teach  us  of  His  ways  ;  and  we 
will  walk  in  His  paths." 

The  stream  will  remember  its  fountain  ;  the  children 
of  God  will  gather  to  their  childhood's  home.  The 
world  will  hear  the  gospel  in  the  recovered  accents  of 
its  prophets  and  apostles. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  FAR  AND  NEAR. 

"Wherefore  remember,  that  aforetime  ye,  the  Gentiles  in  the  flesh, 
who  are  called  Uncircumcision  by  that  which  is  called  Circumcision  in 
the  flesh,  made  by  hands;  that  ye  were  at  that  time  separate  from 
Christ,  being  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  and  strangers 
from  the  covenants  of  promise,  having  no  hope,  and  without  God  in 
the  world  :  but  now  in  Christ  Jesus  ye  who  sometime  were  far  off  are 
made  nigh  in  the  blood  of  Christ." — Eph.  ii.  II-13. 

THE  apostle's  Wherefore  sums  up  for  his  readers 
the  record  of  their  salvation  rehearsed  in  the 
previous  verses.  ''  You  were  buried  in  your  sins, 
sunk  in  their  corruption,  ruined  by  their  guilt,  living 
under  God's  displeasure  and  in  the  power  of  Satan. 
All  this  has  passed  away.  The  almighty  Hand  has 
raised  you  with  Christ  into  a  heavenly  life.  God  has 
become  your  Father ;  His  love  is  in  your  heart ;  by  the 
strength  of  His  grace  you  are  enabled  to  walk  in  the 
way  marked  out  for  you  from  your  creation.  Where- 
fore remember:  think  of  what  you  were,  and  of  what 
you  are  1 

To  such  recollections  we  do  well  to  summon  ourselves. 
The  children  of  grace  love  to  recall,  and  on  fit  occasions 
recount  for  God's  glory  and  the  help  of  their  fellows, 
the  way  in  which  God  led  them  to  the  knowledge  of 
Himself  In  some  the  great  change  came  suddenly. 
He    ^'made  speed"   to    save    us.     It   was  a  veritable 


ii.  II-I3.]  THE  FAR  AND  NEAR.  I2i 

resurrection,  as  signal  and  unlocked  for  as  the  rising 
of  Christ  from  the  dead.  By  a  swift  passage  we  were 
"  translated  from  the  power  of  darkness  into  the 
kingdom  of  the  Son  of  His  love."  Once  living  without 
God  in  the  world,  we  were  arrested  by  a  strange  pro- 
vidence— through  some  overthrow  of  fortune  or  shock 
of  bereavement,  or  by  a  trivial  incident  touching  un- 
accountably a  hidden  spring  in  the  mind — and  the  whole 
aspect  of  life  was  altered  in  a  moment.  We  saw 
revealed,  as  by  a  lightning  flash  at  night,  the  emptiness 
of  our  own  life,  the  misery  of  our  nature,  the  folly  of 
our  unbelief,  the  awful  presence  of  God — God  whom 
we  had  forgotten  and  despised  !  We  sought,  and 
found  His  mercy.  From  that  hour  the  old  things 
passed  away:  we  Hved  who  had  been  dead, — made 
alive  to  God  through  Jesus  Christ. 

This  instant  conversion,  such  as  Paul  experienced, 
this  sharp  and  abrupt  transition  from  darkness  to  light, 
was  common  in  the  first  generation  of  Christians,  as  it 
is  wherever  religious  awakening  takes  place  in  a  society 
that  has  been  largely  dead  to  God.  The  advent  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  Gentile  world  was  much  after  this  fashion, 
— like  a  tropical  sunrise,  in  which  day  leaps  on  the  earth 
full-born.  This  experience  gives  a  stamp  of  pecuhar 
decision  to  the  convictions  and  character  of  its  subjects. 
The  change  is  patent  and  palpable  ;  no  observer  can 
fail  to  mark  it.  And  it  burns  itself  into  the  memory 
with  an  ineffaceable  impression.  The  violent  throes 
of  such  a  spiritual  birth  cannot  be  forgotten. 

But  if  our  entrance  into  the  hfe  of  God  was  gradual, 
like  the  dawn  of  our  own  milder  clime,  where  the  light 
steals  by  imperceptible  advances  upon  the  darkness— if 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  has  thus  risen  upon  us,  our  cer- 
tainty of  its  presence  may  be  no  less  complete,  and  our 


THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


remembrance  of  its  coming  no  less  grateful  and  joyous. 
One  leaps  into  the  new  life  by  a  single  eager  bound  ; 
another  reaches  it  by  measured,  thoughtful  steps :  but 
both  are  there,  standing  side  by  side  on  the  common 
ground  of  salvation  in  Christ.  Both  walk  in  the  same 
light  of  the  Lord,  that  floods  the  sky  from  east  to  west. 
The  recollections  which  the  latter  has  to  cherish  of  the 
leading  of  God's  kindly  light— how  He  touched  our 
childish  thought,  and  checked  gently  our  boyish  way- 
wardness, and  mingled  reproof  with  the  first  stirrings 
of  passion  and  self-will,  and  wakened  the  alarms  of 
conscience  and  the  fears  of  another  world,  and  the  sense 
of  the  beauty  of  hoHness  and  the  shame  of  sin, — 

'  *  Shaping  to  truth  the  froward  will 
Along  His  narrow  way," — 

such  remembrances  are  a  priceless  treasure,  that  grows 
richer  as  we  grow  wiser.  It  awakens  a  joy  not  so 
thrilHng  nor  so  prompt  in  utterance  as  that  of  the  soul 
snatched  like  a  brand  from  the  burning,  but  which 
passes  understanding.  Blessed  are  the  children  of 
the  kingdom,  those  who  have  never  roamed  far  from 
the  fold  of  Christ  and  the  commonwealth  of  Israel, 
whom  the  cross  has  beckoned  onwards  from  their 
childhood.  But  however  it  was — by  whatever  means, 
at  whatever  time  it  pleased  God  to  call  you  from  dark- 
ness to  His  marvellous  light,  remember. 

But  we  must  return  to  Paul  and  his  Gentile  readers. 
The  old  death  in  life  was  to  them  a  sombre  reahty, 
keenly  and  painfully  remembered.  In  that  condition 
of  moral  night  out  of  which  Christ  had  rescued  them. 
Gentile  society  around  them  still  remained.  Let  us 
observe  its  features  as  they  are  delineated  in  contrast 


ii.  11-13.J  THE  FAR  AND  NEAR.  123 

with  the  privileges  long  bestowed  on  Israel.  The 
Gentile  world  was  Chrtstless,  hopeless,  godless.  It  had 
no  share  in  the  Divine  polity  framed  for  the  chosen 
people;  the  outward  mark  of  its  uncircumcision  was 
a  true  symbol  of  its  irreligion  and  debasement. 

Israel  had  a  God.  Besides,  there  were  only  "  those 
who  are  called  gods."  This  was  the  first  and  cardinal 
distinction.  Not  their  race,  not  their  secular  calling, 
their  poHtical  or  intellectual  gifts,  but  their  faith  formed 
the  Jews  into  a  nation.  They  were  ''the  people  of 
God,"  as  no  other  people  has  been — of  the  God,  for 
theirs  was  "  the  true  and  living  God  " — Jehovah,  the 
I  AM,  the  One,  the  Alone.  The  monotheistic  belief 
was,  no  doubt,  wavering  and  imperfect  in  the  mass  of 
the  nation  in  early  times ;  but  it  was  held  by  the  ruling 
minds  amongst  them,  by  the  men  who  have  shaped  the 
destiny  of  Israel  and  created  its  Bible,  with  increasing 
clearness  and  intensity  of  passion.  ''All  the  gods  of 
the  nations  are  idols — vapours,  phantoms,  nothings  ! — 
but  Jehovah  made  the  heavens."  It  was  the  ancestral 
faith  that  glowed  in  the  breast  of  Paul  at  Athens, 
amidst  the  fairest  shrines  of  Greece,  when  he  "saw 
the  city  wholly  given  to  idolatry  " — man's  highest  art 
and  the  toil  and  piety  of  ages  lavished  on  things  that 
were  no  gods ;  and  in  the  midst  of  the  splendour  of  a 
hollow  and  decaying  Paganism  he  read  the  confession 
that  God  was  "unknown." 

Ephesus  had  her  famous  goddess,  worshipped  in  the 
most  sumptuous  pile  of  architecture  that  the  ancient 
world  contained.  Behold  the  proud  city,  "  temple- 
keeper  of  the  great  goddess  Artemis,"  filled  with 
wrath  !  Infuriate  Demos  flashes  fire  from  his  thou- 
sand eyes,  and  his  brazen  throat  roars  hoarse  vengeance 
against  the  insulters  of  "  her  magnificence,  whom  all 


124  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Asia  and  the  world  worshippeth  "  !  Without  God — 
afheisiSj  in  fact,  the  apostle  calls  this  devout  Asian 
population';  and  Artemis  of  Ephesus,  and  Athene,  and 
Cybele  of  Smyrna,  and  Zeus  and  Asclepius  of  Pergamum, 
though  all  the  world  worship  them,  are  but  ''  creatures 
of  art  and  man's  device." 

The  Pagans  retorted  this  reproach.  "  Away  with 
the  atheists !  "  they  cried,  when  Christians  were  led  to 
execution.  Ninety  years  after  this  time  the  martyr 
Polycarp  was  brought  into  the  arena  before  the  magis- 
trates of  Asia  and  the  populace  gathered  in  Smyrna 
at  the  great  Ionic  festival.  The  Proconsul,  wishing  to 
spare  the  venerable  man,  said  to  him :  "  Swear  by  the 
Fortune  of  Caesar ;  and  say,  Away  with  the  atheists  ! " 
But  Polycarp,  as  the  story  continues,  ''  with  a  grave 
look  gazing  on  the  crowd  of  lawless  Gentiles  in  the 
stadium  and  shaking  his  hand  against  them,  then 
groaning  and  looking  up  to  heaven,  said,  Away  with 
the  atheists  !  "  Pagan  and  Christian  were  each  godless 
in  the  eyes  of  the  other.  If  visible  temples  and  images, 
and  the  local  worship  of  each  tribe  or  city  made  a  god, 
then  Jews  and  Christians  had  none  :  if  God  was  a 
Spirit — One,  Holy,  Almighty,  Omnipresent — then  poly- 
theists  were  in  truth  atheists  ;  their  many  gods,  being 
many,  were  no  gods ;  they  were  idols, — eidola,  illusive 
shows  of  the  Godhead. 

The  more  thoughtful  and  pious  among  the  heathen 
felt  this  already.  When  the  apostle  denounced  the 
idols  and  their  pompous  worship  as  *'  these  vanities," 
his  words  found  an  echo  in  the  Gentile  conscience. 
The  classical  Paganism  held  the  multitude  by  the  force 
of  habit  and  local  pride,  and  by  its  sensuous  and  artistic 
charms ;  but  such  religious  power  as  it  once  had  was 
gone.     In  all  directions  it  was  undermined  by  mystic 


ii.  II-I3.]  THE  FAR  AND  NEAR.  125 

Oriental  and  Egyptian  rites,  to  which  men  resorted  in 
search  of  a  religion  and  sick  of  the  old  fables,  ever  grow- 
ing more  debased,  that  had  pleased  their  fathers.  The 
majesty  of  Rome  in  the  person  of  the  Emperor,  the 
one  visible  supreme  power,  was  seized  upon  by  the 
popular  instinct,  even  more  than  it  was  imposed  by 
state  policy,  and  made  to  fill  the  vacuum  ;  and  temples 
to  Augustus  had  already  risen  in  Asia,  side  by  side 
with  those  of  the  ancient  gods. 

In  this  despair  of  their  ancestral  religions  many 
piously  disposed  Gentiles  turned  to  Judaism  for 
spiritual  help  ;  and  the  synagogue  was  surrounded  in 
the  Greek  cities  by  a  circle  of  earnest  proselytes. 
From  their  ranks  St  Paul  drew  a  large  proportion  of 
his  hearers  and  converts.  When  he  writes,  "  Remem- 
ber that  you  were  at  that  time  without  God,'^  he  is 
within  the  recollection  of  his  readers ;  and  they  will 
bear  him  out  in  testifying  that  their  heathen  creed  was 
dead  and  empty  to  the  soul.  Nor  did  philosophy 
construct  a  creed  more  satisfying.  Its  gods  were  the 
Epicurean  deities  who  dwell  aloof  and  careless  of  men  ; 
or  the  supreme  Reason  and  Necessity  of  the  Stoics, 
the  anima  mundi,  of  which  human  souls  are  fleeting 
and  fragmentary  images.  *'  Deism  finds  God  only 
in  heaven ;  Pantheism,  only  on  earth ;  Christianity 
alone  finds  Him  both  in  heaven  and  on  earth"  (Harless). 
The  Word  made  flesh  reveals  God  in  the  world. 

When  the  apostle  says  " without  God  in  the  world" 
this  qualification  is  both  reproachful  and  sorrowful.  To 
be  without  God  in  the  world  that  He  has  made,  where 
His  "  eternal  power  and  Godhead  "  have  been  visible 
from  creation,  argues  a  darkened  and  perverted  heart.* 

*  Rom.  i.  19-23  ;  comp.  John  i.  10  :  "  He  [the  true  Lightjiv/as  in 
the  world,  and  the  world  knew  Him  not." 


126  THE   EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

To  be  without  God  in  the  world  is  to  be  in  the  wilder- 
ness, without  a  guide ;  on  a  stormy  ocean,  without 
harbour  or  pilot ;  in  sickness  of  spirit,  without  medicine 
or  physician ;  to  be  hungry  without  bread,  and  weary 
without  rest,  and  dying  with  no  light  of  hfe.  It  is  to 
be  an  orphaned  child,  wandering  in  an  empty,  ruined 
house. 

In  these  words  we  have  an  echo  of  Paul's  preaching 
to  the  Gentiles,  and  an  indication  of  the  line  of  his 
appeals  to  the  conscience  of  the  enlightened  pagans 
of  his  time.  The  despair  of  the  age  was  darker  than 
the  human  mind  has  known  before  or  since.  Matthew 
Arnold  has  painted  it  all  in  one  verse  of  those  lines, 
entitled  Obermann  once  more,  in  which  he  so  perfectly 
expresses  the  better  spirit  of  modern  scepticism. 

"On  that  hard  Pagan  world  disgust 
And  secret  loathing  fell ; 
Deep  weariness  and  sated  lust 
Made  human  life  a  hell." 

The  saying  by  which  St  Paul  reproved  the  Corin- 
thians, "Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we 
die,"  is  the  common  sentiment  of  pagan  epitaphs  of 
the  time.  Here  is  an  extant  specimen  of  the  kind  : 
"  Let  us  drink  and  be  merry ;  for  we  shall  have  no 
more  kissing  and  dancing  in  the  kingdom  of  Proserpine. 
Soon  shall  we  fall  asleep,  to  wake  no  more."  Such 
were  the  thoughts  with  which  men  came  back  from 
the  grave-side.  It  is  needless  to  say  how  depraving 
was  the  effect  of  this  hopelessness.  At  Athens,  in 
the  more  religious  times  of  Socrates,  it  was  even  con- 
sidered a  decent  and  kindly  thing  to  allow  a  criminal 
condemned  to  death  to  spend  his  last  hours  in  gross 
sensual  indulgence.     There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 


ii.  II-I3.]  THE  FAR   AND  NEAR.  127 

the  extinction  of  the  Christian  hope  of  immortality  would 
prove  less  demoralizing.  We  are  "  saved  by  hope," 
said  St  Paul :  we  are  ruined  by  despair.  Pessimism 
of  creed  for  most  men  means  pessimism  of  conduct. 

Our  modern  speech  and  hterature  and  our  habits  of 
feeling  have  been  for  so  many  generations  steeped  in 
the  influence  of  Christ's  teaching,  and  it  has  thrown  so 
many  tender  and  hallowed  thoughts  around  the  state 
of  our  beloved  dead,  that  it  is  impossible  even  for 
those  who  are  personally  without  hope  in  Christ 
to  realize  what  its  general  decay  and  disappearance 
would  mean.  To  have  possessed  such  a  treasure,  and 
then  to  lose  it !  to  have  cherished  anticipations  so 
exalted  and  so  dear, — and  to  find  them  turn  out  a 
mockery  !  The  age  upon  which  this  calamity  fell  would 
be  of  all  ages  the  most  miserable. 

The  hope  of  Israel  which  Paul  preached  to  the 
Gentiles  was  a  hope  for  the  world  and  for  the  nations, 
as  well  as  for  the  individual  soul.  ''The  common- 
wealth [or  polity]  of  Israel  "  and  "  the  covenants  of 
promise "  guaranteed  the  establishment  of  the  Mes- 
sianic kingdom  upon  earth.  This  expectation  took 
amongst  the  mass  of  the  Jews  a  materialistic  and  even 
a  revengeful  shape;  but  in  one  form  or  other  it 
belonged,  and  still  belongs  to  every  man  of  Israel. 
Those  noble  lines  of  Virgil  in  his  fourth  Eclogue* — 
like  the  w^ords  of  Caiaphas,  an  unintended  Christian 
prophecy — which  predicted   the  return  of  justice  and 


Magnus  ab  integro  s^clorum  nascitur  ordo. 
Jam  redit  et  Virgo,  redeunt  Saturnia  regna; 
Jam  nova  progenies  coelo  demittitur  alto. 
Tu  modo  nascenti  puero,  quo  ferrea  primum 
Desinet,  ac  toto  surget  gens  aurea  mundo, 
Casta,  fave,   Lucina, 


128  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


the  spread  of  a  golden  age  through  the  whole  world 
upder  the  rule  of  the  coming  heir  of  Caesar,  had  been 
signally  belied  by  the  imperial  house  in  the  century 
that  had  elapsed.  Never  were  human  prospects  darker 
than  when  the  apostle  wrote  as  Nero's  prisoner  in 
Rome.  It  was  an  age  of  crime  and  horror.  The 
political  world  and  the  system  of  pagan  society  seemed 
to  be  in  the  throes  of  dissolution.  Only  in  "the 
commonwealth  of  Israel  "  was  there  a  light  of  hope 
and  a  foundation  for  the  future  of  mankind  ;  and  of 
this  in  its  wisdom  the  world  knew  nothing. 

The  Gentiles  were  "alienated  from  the  common- 
wealth of  Israel," — that  is  to  say,  treated  as  ahens 
and  made  such  by  their  exclusion.  By  the  very  fact 
of  Israel's  election,  the  rest  of  mankind  were  shut  out 
of  the  visible  kingdom  of  God.  They  became  mere 
Gentiles,  or  nations, — a  herd  of  men  bound  together  only 
by  natural  affinity,  with  no  "  covenant  of  promise,"  no 
religious  constitution  or  destiny,  no  definite  relationship 
to  God,  Israel  being  alone  the  acknowledged  and 
organized  ^'people  of  Jehovah." 

These  distinctions  were  summed  up  in  one  word, 
expressing  all  the  pride  of  the  Jewish  nature,  when 
the  Israelites  styled  themselves  "the  Circumcision." 
The  rest  of  the  world — Philistines  or  Egyptians,  Greeks, 
Romans,  or  Barbarians,  it  mattered  not — were  "the 
Uncircumcision."  How  superficial  this  distinction  was 
in  point  of  fact,  and  how  false  the  assumption  of  moral 
superiority  it  implied  in  the  existing  condition  of 
Judaism,  St  Paul  indicates  by  saying,  "  those  who  are 
called  Uncircumcision  by  that  which  is  called  Circum- 
cision, in  flesh,  wrought  by  human  hands."  In  the 
second  and  third  chapters  of  his  epistle  to  the  Romans 
he   exposed   the  hollowness   of  Jewish    sanctity,   and 


ii.  II-I3.]  THE  FAR  AND  NEAR.         •  129 

brought  his  fellow-countrymen  down  to  the  level  of 
those  "  sinners  of  the  Gentiles  "  whom  they  so  bitterly 
despised. 

The  destitution  of  the  Gentile  world  is  put  into  a 
single  word,  when  the  apostle  says:  "You  were  at 
that  time  separate  from  ChrisV^ — without  a  Christ, 
either  come  or  coming.  They  were  deprived  of  the 
world's  one  treasure, — shut  out,  as  it  appeared,  for 
ever  *  from  any  part  in  Him  who  is  to  mankind  all 
things  and  in  all. — Once  far  off  ! 

**But  now  in  Christ  Jesus  ye  were  made  nigJiy 
What  is  it  that  has  bridged  the  distance,  that  has 
transported  these  Gentiles  from  the  wilderness  of 
heathenism  into  the  midst  of  the  city  of  God  ?  It  is 
''the  blood  of  Christ."  The  sacrificial  death  of  Jesus 
Christ  transformed  the  relations  of  God  to  mankind, 
and  of  Israel  to  the  Gentiles.  In  Him  God  reconciled 
not  a  nation,  but  "  a  world"  to  Himself  (2  Cor.  v.  19). 
The  death  of  the  Son  of  man  could  not  have  reference 
to  the  sons  of  Abraham  alone.  If  sin  is  universal  and 
death  is  not  a  Jewish  but  a  human  experience,  and  if 
one  blood  flows  in  the  veins  of  all  our  race,  then  the 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  was  a  universal  sacrifice ;  it 
appeals  to  every  man's  conscience  and  heart,  and  puts 
away  for  each  the  guilt  which  comes  between  his  soul 
and  God. 

When  the  Greeks  in  Passion  week  desired  to  see 
Him,  He  exclaimed  :  *'  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the 
earth,  will  draw  all  unto  me."  The  cross  of  Jesus 
was  to  draw  humanity  around  it,  by  its  infinite  love 

*  Observe  the  perfect  participle  dTrrjT^XoTpicofxevoL,  which  signifies  an 
abiding  fact  or  fixed  condition.  Similar  is  the  turn  of  expression  in 
ch.  iii.  9,  and  in  Col.  i.  26,  Rom.  xvi.  25,  Matt.  xiii.  35. 


I30  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

and  sorrow,  by  the  perfect  apprehension  there  was  in 
it  of  the  world's  guilt  and  need,  and  the  perfect  sub- 
mission to  the  sentence  of  God's  law  against  man's  sin. 
So  wherever  the  gospel  was  preached  by  St  Paul,  it 
won  Gentile  hearts  for  Christ.  Greek  and  Jew  found 
themselves  weeping  together  at  the  foot  of  the  cross, 
sharing  one  forgiveness  and  baptized  into  one  Spirit. 

The  union  of  Caiaphas  and  Pilate  in  the  condemna- 
tion of  Je-sus  and  the  mingling  of  the  Jewish  crowd 
with  the  Roman  soldiers  at  His  execution  were  a  tragic 
symbol  of  the  new  age  that  was  coming.  Israel  and 
the  Gentiles  were  accomplices  in  the  death  of  the 
Messiah — the  former  of  the  two  the  more  guilty  partner 
in  the  counsel  and  deed.  If  this  Jesus  whom  they 
slew  and  hanged  on  a  tree  was  indeed  the  Christ, 
God's  chosen,  then  what  availed  their  Abrahamic 
sonship,  their  covenants  and  law-keeping,  their  proud 
religious  eminence  ?  They  had  killed  their  Christ ; 
they  had  forfeited  their  calling.  His  blood  was  on 
them  and  on  their  children. 

Those  who  seemed  nigh  to  God,  at  the  cross  of 
Christ  were  found  far  off, — that  both  together,  the  far 
and  the  near,  might  be  reconciled  and  brought  back 
to  God.  **  He  shut  up  all  unto  disobedience,  that  He 
might  have  mercy  upon  all." 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE  DOUBLE  RECONCILIATION. 

"  For  He  is  our  peace,  who  made  both  one,  and  brake  down  the 
middle  wall  of  partition,  having  abolished  in  His  flesh  the  enmity,  even 
the  law  of  commandments  contained  in  ordinances,  that  He  might 
create  in  Himself  of  the  twain  one  new  man,  so  making  peace ;  and 
might  reconcile  them  both  in  one  body  unto  God  through  the  cross, 
having  slain  the  enmity  thereby  :  and  He  came  and  preached  good 
tidings  of  peace  to  you  that  were  far  off,  and  peace  to  them  that  were 
nigh  :  for  through  Him  we  both  have  our  access  in  one  Spirit  unto  the 
Father." — Eph.  ii.  14-18. 

IDE  ACE  y  peace — to  the  far  off,  and  to  the  near  !  Such 
•^  was  God's  promise  to  His  scattered  people  in  the 
times  of  the  exile  (Isai.  Ivii.  19).  St  Paul  sees  that 
peace  of  God  extending  over  a  yet  wider  field,  and 
terminating  a  longer  and  sadder  banishment  than  the 
prophet  had  foreseen.  Christ  is  '^  our  peace  " — not  for 
the  divided  members  of  Israel  alone,  but  for  all  the 
tribes  of  men.  He  brings  about  a  universal  pacification. 
There  were  two  distinct,  but  kindred  enmities  to 
be  overcome  by  Christ,  in  preaching  to  the  world 
His  good  tidings  of  peace  (ver.  17).  There  was  the 
hostility  of  Jew  and  Gentile,  which  was  removed  in  its 
cause  and  principle  when  Christ  "in  His  flesh"  (by  His 
incarnate  life  and  death)  ''^  abolished  the  law  of  com- 
mandments in  decrees" — i.e.,  the  law  of  Moses  as  it 
constituted  a  body  of  external  precepts  determining  the 

131 


132  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


way  of  righteousness  and  life.  This  abolition  of  the 
law  by  the  evangelical  principle  "  dissolved  the  middle 
wall  of  partition."  The  occasion  of  quarrel  between 
Israel  and  the  world  was  destroyed  ;  the  barrier  dis- 
appeared that  had  for  so  long  fenced  off  the  privileged 
ground  of  the  sons  of  Abraham  (vv.  14,  15).  But 
behind  this  human  enmity,  underneath  the  feud  and 
rancour  existing  between  the  Jews  and"  the  nations, 
there  lay  the  deeper  quarrel  of  mankind  with  God. 
Both  enmities  centred  in  the  law  ;  both  were  slain  by 
one  stroke,  in  the  reconciUation  of  the  cross  (ver.  16). 

The  Jewish  and  Gentile  peoples  formed  two  distinct 
types  of  humanity.  Politically,  the  Jews  were  insig- 
nificant and  had  scarcely  counted  amongst  the  great 
powers  of  the  world.  Their  religion  alone  gave  them 
influence  and  importance.  Bearing  his  inspired 
Scriptures  and  his  Messianic  hope,  the  wandering 
Israelite  confronted  the  vast  masses  of  heathenism  and 
the  splendid  and  fascinating  classical  civilization  with 
the  proudest  sense  of  his  superiority.  To  his  God 
he  knew  well  that  one  day  every  knee  would  bow  and 
every  tongue  confess.  The  circumstances  of  the  time 
deepened  his  isolation  and  aggravated  to  internecine 
hate  his  spite  against  his  fellow-men,  the  adversus 
omnes  alios  hostile  odium  stigmatized  by  the  incisive 
pen  of  Tacitus.  Within  three  years  of  the  writing  of 
this  letter  the  Jewish  war  against  Rome  broke  cut, 
when  the  enmity  culminated  in  the  most  appalling  and 
fateful  overthrow  recorded  in  the  pages  of  history. 
Now,  it  is  this  enmity  at  its  height — the  most  inveterate 
and  desperate  one  can  conceive — that  the  apostle  pro- 
poses to  reconcile ;  nay,  that  he  sees  already  slain  by 
the  sacrifice  of  the  cross,  and  within  the  brotherhood 
of  the  Christian  Church.     It  was   slain  in  the   heart 


it  1 4- 1 8. J  THE  DOUBLE  RECONCILlAtlO]^.  133 


of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the  proudest  that  beat  in  Jewish 
breast. 

In  his  earher  writings  the  apostle  has  been  concerned 
chiefly  to  guard  the  position  and  rights  of  the  two  parties 
within  the  Church.  He  has  abundantly  maintained, 
especially  in  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians,  the  claims  of 
Gentile  believers  in  Christ  against  Judaic  assumptions 
and  impositions.  He  has  defended  the  just  prerogative 
of  the  Jew  and  his  hereditary  sentiments  from  the 
contempt  to  which  they  were  sometimes  exposed  on 
the  part  of  the  Gentile  majority.*  But  now  that  this 
has  been  done,  and  that  Gentile  Hberties  and  Jewish 
dignity  have  been  vindicated  and  safeguarded  on  both 
sides,  St  Paul  advances  a  step  further  :  he  seeks  to 
amalgamate  the  Jewish  and  Gentile  section  of  the 
Church,  and  to  "  make  of  the  twain  one  new  man,  so 
making  peace."  This,  he  declares,  was  the  end  of 
Christ's  mission  ;  this  a  chief  purpose  of  His  atoning 
death.  Only  by  such  union,  only  through  the  burying 
of  the  old  enmity  slain  on  the  cross,  could  His  Church 
be  built  up  to  its  completeness.  St  Paul  v/ould  have 
Gentile  and  Jewish  believers  everywhere  forget  their 
differences,  efface  their  party  lines,  and  merge  their 
independence  in  the  oneness  of  the  all-embracing  and 
all-perfecting  Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  God's  habitation 
in  the  Spirit.  Instead  of  saying  that  a  catholic  ideal 
like  this  belongs  to  a  later  and  post-apostolic  age,  we 
maintain,  on  the  contrary,  that  a  catholic  mind  like 
St  Paul's,  under  the  conditions  of  his  time,  could  not 
fail  to  arrive  at  this  conception. 

It  was  his  confidence  in  the  victory  of  the  cross 
over  all  strife  and  sin  that  sustained  St  Paul  through 

*  See  to  this  effect  such  passages  as  Rom.  i.  16  {to  the  /etv  Jirst), 
ix.  4,  5  ;  and  especially  xi.  13-32. 


134  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

these  years  of  captivity.  As  he  looks  out  from  his 
Roman  prison,  under  the  shadow  of  Nero's  palace, 
the  future  is  invested  with  a  radiance  of  hope  that 
makes  the  heart  of  the  chained  apostle  exult  within 
him.  The  world  is  lost,  to  all  outward  seeming : 
he  knows  it  is  saved  !  Jew  and  Gentile  are  about  to 
close  in  mortal  conflict :  he  proclaims  peace  between 
them,  assured  of  their  reconcilement,  and  knowing  that 
in  their  reunion  the  salvation  of  human  society  is 
assured. 

The  enmity  of  Jew  and  Gentile  was  representative 
of  all  that  divides  mankind.  In  it  were  concentrated 
most  of  the  causes  by  which  society  is  rent  asunder. 
Along  with  religion,  race,  habits,  tastes  and  culture, 
moral  tendencies,  political  aspirations,  interests  of 
trade,  all  helped  to  widen  the  breach.  The  cleavage 
ran  deep  into  the  foundations  of  Hfe  ;  the  enmity  was 
the  growth  of  two  thousand  years.  It  was  not  a  case 
of  local  friction,  nor  a  quarrel  arising  from  temporary 
causes.  The  Jew  was  ubiquitous,  and  everywhere  was 
an  alien  and  an  irritant  to  Gentile  society.  No  anti- 
pathy was  so  hard  to  subdue.  The  grace  that  conquers 
it,  can  and  will  conquer  all  enmities. 

St  Paul's  view  embraced,  in  fact,  a  world-wide 
reconcilement.  He  contemplates,  as  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phets themselves  did,  the  fraternization  of  mankind 
under  the  rule  of  the  Christ.  After  this  scale  he  laid 
down  the  foundation  of  the  Church,  "  wise  master- 
builder  "  that  he  was.  It  was  destined  to  bear  the  weight 
of  an  edifice  in  which  all  the  races  of  men  should  dwell 
together,  and  every  order  of  human  faculty  should  find 
its  place.  His  thoughts  were  not  confined  within  the 
Judaic  antithesis.  "  There  is  no  Jew  and  Greek,"  he 
says  in  another  place  ;  yes,  and  "  no  barbarian,  Scythian, 


ii.  14-18.]  THE  DOUBLE  RECONCILIATION.  135 

bondman,  freeman,  male  or  female.  Ye  are  all  one 
in  Christ  Jesus."*  Birth,  rank,  office  in  the  Church, 
culture,  even  sex  are  minor  and  subordinate  distinc- 
tions, merged  in  the  unity  of  redeemed  souls  in  Christ. 
That  which  He  ''  creates  in  Himself  of  the  twain  "  is 
one  new  man — one  incorporate  humanity,  neither  Jew 
nor  Gentile,  Englishman  nor  Hindu,  priest  nor  layman, 
male  nor  female  ;  but  simply  man,  and  Christian. 

At  the  present  time  we  are  better  able  to  enter  into 
these  views  of  the  apostle  than  at  any  intervening 
period  of  history.  In  his  day  almost  the  whole  visible 
world,  lying  round  the  Mediterranean  shores,  was 
brought  under  the  government  and  laws  of  Rome.  This 
fact  made  the  establishment  of  one  religious  polity  a 
thing  quite  conceivable.  The  Roman  empire  did  not, 
as  it  proved,  allow  Christianity  to  conquer  it  soon 
enough  and  to  leaven  it  sufficiently  to  save  it.  That 
huge  construction,  the  mightiest  fabric  of  human  polity, 
fell  and  covered  the  earth  with  its  ruins.  In  its  fall 
it  reacted  disastrously  upon  the  Church,  and  has  be- 
queathed to  it  the  corrupt  and  despotic  unity  of  Papal 
Rome.  Now,  in  these  last  days,  the  whole  world  is 
opened  to  the  Church,  a  world  stretching  far  beyond 
the  horizon  of  the  first  century.  Science  and  Com- 
merce, those  two  strong-winged  angels  and  giant 
ministers  of  God,  are  swiftly  binding  the  continents 
together  in  material  ties.  The  peoples  are  beginning  to 
realize  their  brotherhood,  and  are  feeling  their  way  in 
many  directions  towards  international  union ;  while 
in  the  Churches  a  new,  federal  catholicity  is  taking 
shape,  that  must  displace  the  false  Catholicism  of 
external  uniformity  and  the  disastrous  absolutism  in- 

*  Gal.   iii.    28;  Col.  iii.  11.     Comp.  John  x.   16,  xi.  52.     See  The 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  (Expositor's  Bible),  Chapter  XV. 


/^... 


136  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

herited  from  Rome.  The  spread  of  European  empire 
and  the  marvellous  expansion  of  our  English  race  are 
carrying  forward  the  world's  unification  with  enormous 
strides,  —towards  some  end  or  other.  What  end  is 
this  to  be  ?  Is  the  kingdom  of  the  world  about  to 
become  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  His  Christ  ?  and 
are  the  nations  preparing  to  be  ^'reconciled  in  one 
body  unto  God  "  ? 

If  Christendom  were  worthy  of  her  Master  and  her 
name,  this  question  would  be  answered  with  no  doubt- 
ful affirmative.  The  Church  is  well  able,  if  she  were 
prepared,  to  go  up  and  possess  the  whole  earth  for  her 
Lord.  The  way  is  open ;  the  means  are  in  her  hand. 
Nor  is  she  ignorant,  nor  wholly  negligent  of  her  oppor- 
tunity and  of  the  claims  that  the  times  impose  upon  her. 
She  is  putting  forth  new  strength  and  striving  to  over- 
take her  work,  notwithstanding  the  weight  of  ignorance 
and  sloth  that  burdens  her.  Soon  the  reconciling  cross 
will  be  planted  on  every  shore,  and  the  praises  of  the 
Crucified  sung  in  every  human  language. 

But  there  are  dark  as  well  as  bright  auguries  for 
the  future.  The  advance  of  commerce  and  emigration 
has  been  a  curse  and  not  a  blessing  to  many  heathen 
peoples.  Who  can  read  without  shame  and  horror  the 
story  of  European  conquest  in  America  ?  And  it  is  a 
chapter  not  yet  closed.  Greed  and  injustice  still  mark 
the  dealings  of  the  powerful  and  civilized  with  the 
weaker  races.  England  set  a  noble  example  in  the 
abolition  of  negro  slavery ;  but  she  has  since  inflicted, 
for  purposes  of  gain,  the  opium  curse  on  China,  putting 
poison  to  the  lips  of  its  vast  population.  Under  our 
Christian  flags  fire-arms  are  imported,  and  alcohol, 
amongst  tribes  of  men  less  able  than  children  to  resist 
their  evils.    Is  this  "  preaching  peace  to  those  far  off"  ? 


[4-i8.]  THE  DOUBLE  RECONCILIATION.  137 


It  is  likely  that  the  commercial  profits  made  in  the 
destruction  of  savage  races  as  yet  exceed  all  that  our 
missionary  societies  have  spent  in  saving  them.  One 
of  these  days  Almighty  God  may  have  a  stern  reckon- 
ing with  modern  Europe  about  these  things.  "  When 
He  maketh  inquisition  for  blood,  He  will  remember." 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  ourselves  at  home,  in  our 
relation  to  this  great   principle  of  the  apostle  ?     The 
old  ''  middle  wall  of  partition,"  the  temple-barrier  that 
sundered  Jew  and  Gentile,  is  "  broken  down,"— visibly 
levelled  by  the  hand  of  God  when  Jerusalem  fell,  as  it 
had  been  virtually  and  in  its  principle  destroyed  by  the 
work  of  Christ.     But  are  there  no  other  middle  walls, 
no  barriers  raised  within  the  fold  of  Christ  ?     The  rich 
man's  purse,  and  the  poor  man's  penury  ;  aristocratic 
pride,   democratic   bitterness  and  jealousy  ;  knowledge 
and  refinement  on  the  one  hand,  ignorance  and  rude- 
ness on  the  other— how  thick  the  veil  of  estrangement 
which  these  influences  weave,  how  high  the  party  walls 
which  they  build  in  our  various  Church  communions ! 
It  is  the  duty  of  the  Church,  as  she  values  her  exist- 
ence, with  gentle  but  firm  hands  to  pull  down  and  to 
keep  down  all  such  partitions.     She  cannot  aboHsh  the 
natural  distinctions  of  life.     She  cannot  turn  the  Jew 
into  a  Gentile,  nor  the  Gentile  into  a  Jew.     She  will 
never  make  the  poor  man  rich  in  this  world,  nor  the 
rich    man    altogether    poor.      Like    her    Master,    she 
declines  to  be  ''judge  or  divider  "   of  our  secular  in- 
heritance.    But  she  can  see  to  it  that  these  outward 
distmctions  make  no  difference  in  her  treatment  of  the 
men  as  men.     She  can  combine  in  her  fellowship  all 
grades  and  orders,  and  teach  them  to  understand  and 
respect  each  other.     She  can  soften  the  asperities  and 
relieve  many  of  the  hardships  which  social  difibrences 


138  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

'  create.  She  can  diffuse  a  healing  and  purifying  in- 
fluence upon  the  contentions  of  society  around  her. 

Let  us  labour  unweariedly  for  this,  and  let  our  meet- 
ing at  the  Lord's  table  be  a  symbol  of  the  unreserved 
communion  of  men  of  all  classes  and  conditions  in  the 
brotherhood  of  the  redeemed  sons  of  God.  ''He  is  our 
peace  " ;  and  if  He  is  in  our  hearts,  we  must  needs  be 
sons  of  peace.  "  Behold  the  secret  of  all  true  union  ! 
It  is  not  by  others  coming  to  us,  nor  by  our  going  over 
to  them  ;  but  it  is  by  both  them  and  ourselves  coming 
to  Christ "  that  peace  is  made  (Monod). 

Thus  v^ithin  and  v^ithout  the  Church  the  v^^ork  of 
atonement  will  advance,  with  Christ  ever  for  its  preacher 
(ver.  17).  He  speaks  through  the  words  and  the  lives 
of  His  ten  thousand  messengers, — men  of  every  order, 
in  every  age  and  country  of  the  earth.  The  leaven  of 
Christ's  peace  will  spread  till  the  lump  is  leavened. 
God  will  accomplish  His  purpose  of  the  ages,  whether 
in  our  time,  or  in  another  worthier  of  His  call- 
ing. His  Church  is  destined  to  be  the  home  of  the 
human  family,  the  universal  liberator  and  instructor 
and  reconciler  of  the  nations.  And  Christ  shall  sit 
enthroned  in  the  loyal  worship  of  the  federated  peoples 
of  the  earth. 

But  the  question  remains  :  What  is  the  foundation, 
what  the  warrant  of  this  grand  idealism  of  the  apostle 
Paul  ?  Many  a  great  thinker,  many  an  ardent  reformer 
before  and  since  has  dreamed  of  some  such  millennium 
as  this.  And  their  enthusiastic  plans  have  ended  too 
often  in  conflict  and  destruction.  What  surer  ground 
of  confidence  have  we  in  Paul's  undertaking  than  in 
those  of  so  many  gifted  visionaries  and  philosophers  ? 
The  difference  lies  here  :  his  expectation  rests  on  the 


ii.  I4-I8.]  THE  DOUBLE  RECONCILIATION.  139 


word  and  character  of  God  ;  his  instrument  of  reform 
is  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ. 

God  is  the  centre  of  His  own  universe.  Any  recon- 
cihation  that  is  to  stand,  must  include  Him  first  of  all. 
Christ  reconciled  Jew  and  Gentile  "  both  in  one  body 
to  Godr  There  is  the  meeting  point,  the  true  focus  of 
the  orbit  of  human  life,  that  can  alone  control  its  move- 
ments and  correct  its  wild  aberrations.  Under  the 
shadow  of  His  throne  of  justice,  in  the  arms  of  His 
fatherly  love,  the  kindreds  of  the  earth  will  at  last  find 
reconciliation  and  peace.  Humanitarian  and  secularist 
systems  make  the  simple  mistake  of  ignoring  the 
supreme  Factor  in  the  scheme  of  things ;  they  leave 
out  the  All  in  all. 

**  Be  ye  reconciled  to  GodJ^  cries  the  apostle.  For 
Almighty  God  has  had  a  great  quarrel  with  this  world 
of  ours.  The  hatred  of  men  towards  each  other  is 
rooted  in  the  "  carnal  mind  which  is  enmity  against  God." 
The  "  law  of  commandments  contained  in  ordinances," 
in  whose  possession  the  Jew  boasted  over  the  lawless 
and  profane  Gentile,  in  reality  branded  both  as  culprits. 

The  secret  disquiet  and  dread  lurking  in  man's  con- 
science, the  pangs  endured  in  his  body  of  humiliation, 
the  groaning  frame  of  nature  declare  the  world  un- 
hinged and  out  of  course.  Things  have  gone  amiss, 
somehow,  between  man  and  his  Creator.  The  face  of 
the  earth  and  the  field  of  human  history  are  scarred 
with  the  thunderbolts  of  His  displeasure.  God,  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  the  King  of  the 
ages,  is  not  the  amiable,  almighty  Sentimentalist  that 
some  pious  people  would  make  Him  out  to  be.  The 
men  of  the  Bible  felt  and  realized,  if  we  do  not, 
the  grave  and  tremendous  import  of  the  Lord's  con- 
troversy   with  all    flesh.       He    is   unceasingly  at   war 


140  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESlANS. 

with  the  sins  of  men.  *^  God  is  love  " — oh  yes  ;  but 
then  He  is  also  "  a  consuming  fire "  !  There  is 
no  anger  so  crushing  as  the  anger  of  love,  for  there 
is  none  so  just ;  no  wrath  to  be  feared  like  ''  the 
wrath  of  the  Lamb."  God  is  not  a  man,  weak  and 
passionate,  whom  a  spark  of  anger  might  set  all  on 
fire,  burning  out  His  justice  and  compassion.  "  In  His 
wrath  He  remembers  mercy."  Within  that  infinite 
nature  there  is  room  for  an  absolute  loathing  and 
resentment  towards  sin,  in  consistence  with  an  im- 
measurable pity  and  yearning  towards  His  sinful 
children.     Hence  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Look  at  it  from  what  side  you  will  (and  it  has  many 
sides),  propound  it  in  what  terms  you  may  (and  it 
translates  itself  anew  into  the  dialect  of  every  age),  you 
must  not  explain  the  cross  of  Christ  away  nor  cause 
its  offence  to  cease.  *'  The  atonement  has  always  been 
a  scandal  and  a  folly  to  those  who  did  not  receive  it ;  it 
has  always  contained  something  which  to  formal  logic 
is  false  and  to  individualistic  ethics  immoral ;  yet  in 
that  very  element  which  has  been  branded  as  immoral 
and  false,  has  always  lain  the  seal  of  its  power  and 
the  secret  of  its  truth."  The  Holy  One  of  God,  the 
Lamb  without  spot  and  blemish.  He  died  by  His  own 
consent  a  sinner's  death.  That  sacrifice,  undergone  by 
the  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man  dying  as  man  for  men, 
in  love  to  His  race  and  in  obedience  to  the  Divine  will 
and  law,  gave  an  infinite  satisfaction  to  God  in  His 
relation  to  the  world,  and  there  went  up  to  the  Divine 
throne  from  the  anguish  of  Calvary  a  ''  savour  of  sweet 
smell."  The  moral  glory  of  the  act  of  Jesus  Christ  in 
dying  for  His  guilty  brethren  outshone  its  horror  and 
disgrace ;  and  it  redeemed  man's  lost  condition,  and 
clothed  human  nature  with  a  new  character  and  aspect 


ii.  I4-I8.]  THE  DOUBLE   RECONCILIATION.  141 

in  the  eyes  of  God  Himself.  "Now  therefore  there 
is  no  more  condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ 
Jesus."  The  mercy  of  God,  if  we  may  so  say,  is 
set  free  to  act  in  forgiveness  and  restoration,  without 
any  compromise  of  justice  and  inflexible  law.  No 
peace  without  this  :  no  peace  that  did  not  satisfy  God, 
and  satisfy  that  law,  deep  as  the  deepest  in  God,  that 
binds  suffering  to  wrong-doing  and  death  to  sin. 

Perhaps  you  say :  This  is  immoral,  surely,  that  the 
just  should  suffer  for  the  unjust ;  that  one  commits  the 
offence,  and  another  bears  the  penalty.— Stay  a  moment: 
that  is  only  half  the  truth.  We  are  more  than  indi- 
viduals ;  we  are  members  of  a  race ;  and  vicarious 
suffering  runs  through  life.  Our  sufferings  and 
wrong-doings  bind  the  human  family  together  in  an 
inextricable  web.  We  are  commtmists  in  sin  and 
death.  It  is  the  law  and  lot  of  our  existence.  And 
Christ,  the  Lord  and  centre  of  the  race,  has  come 
within  its  scope.  He  bound  Himself  to  our  sinking 
fortunes.  He  became  co-partner  in  our  lost  estate, 
and  has  redeemed  it  to  God  by  His  blood.  If  He  was 
true  and  perfect  man,  if  He  was  the  creative  Head  and 
Mediator  of  the  race,  the  eternal  Firstborn  of  many 
brethren.  He  could  do  no  other.  He  who  alone  had 
the  right  and  the  power,— '^  One  died  for  all."  He  took 
upon  His  Divine  heart  the  sin  and  curse  of  the  world. 
He  fastened  it  to  His  shoulders  with  the  cross ;  and  He 
bore  it  away  from  Caiaphas'  hall  and  Pilate's  judgement- 
seat,  away  from  guilty  Jerusalem ;  He  took  away  the 
sin  of  the  world,  and  expiated  it  once  for  all.  He 
quenched  in  His  blood  the  fires  of  wrath  and  hate  it 
kindled.     He  slew  the  enmity  thereby. 

Still,  we  are  individuals,  as  you  said,  not  lost  after 


142  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

all  in  the  world's  solidarity.  Here  your  personal  right 
and. will  must  come  in.  What  Christ  has  done  for  you 
is  yours,  so  far  as  you  accept  it.  He  has  died  your 
death  beforehand,  trusting  that  you  would  not  repudiate 
His  act,  that  you  would  not  let  His  blood  be  spilt  in 
vain.  But  He  will  never  force  His  mediation  upon 
you.  He  respects  your  freedom  and  your  manhood. 
Do  you  now  endorse  what  Jesus  Christ  did  on  your 
behalf?  Do  you  renounce  the  sin,  and  accept  the 
sacrifice  ?  Then  it  is  yours,  from  this  moment,  before 
the  tribunal  of  God  and  of  conscience.  By  the  witness 
of  His  Spirit  you  are  proclaimed  a  forgiven  and  recon- 
ciled man.  Christ  crucified  is  yours — if  you  will  have 
Him,  if  you  will  identify  your  sinful  self  with  the  sin- 
less Mediator,  if  as  you  see  Him  lifted  up  on  the  cross 
you  will  let  your  heart  cry  out,  "  Oh  my  God,  He  dies 
for  me  \" 

Coming  "  in  one  Spirit  to  the  Father,"  the  reconciled 
children  join  hands  again  with  each  other.  Social 
barriers,  caste  feelings,  family  feuds,  personal  quarrels, 
national  antipathies,  alike  go  down  before  the  virtue  of 
the  blood  of  Jesus. 

"Neither  passion  nor  pride 
His  cross  can  abide, 
But  melt  in  the  fountain  that  streams  from  His  side  ! " 

^'  Beloved,"  you  will  say  to  the  man  that  hates  or  has 
wronged  you  most, — "  Beloved,  if  God  so  loved  us,  we 
ought  also  to  love  one  another."  In  these  simple 
words  of  the  apostle  John  Hes  the  secret  of  universal 
peace,  the  hope  of  the  fraternization  of  mankind. 
Nations  will  have  to  say  this  one  day,  as  well  as  men. 


CHAPTER   XL 

GOnS   TEMPLE  IN  HUMANITY. 

"So  then  ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  sojourners,  but  ye  are  fellow- 
citizens  with  the  saints  and  of  the  household  of  God,  being  built  upon 
the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Christ  Jesus  Himself  being 
the  chief  corner  stone ;  in  whom  each  several  building,  fitly  framed 
together,  groweth  into  a  holy  temple  in  the  Lord  ;  in  whom  ye  also  are 
builded  together  for  a  habitation  of  God  in  the  Spirit." — ^Eph.  ii.  19-22. 

NOT  unfrequently  it  is  the  last  word  or  phrase 
of  the  paragraph  that  gives  us  the  ckie  to  St 
Paul's  meaning  and  discloses  the  point  at  which  he  has 
aimed  all  along.  So  in  this  instance.  '^  For  a  habita- 
tion of  God  in  the  Spirit "  :  behold  the  goal  of  God's 
ways  with  mankind  !  For  this  end  the  Divine  grace 
has  wrought  through  countless  ages  and  has  made  its 
great  sacrifice.  For  this  end  Jew^  and  Gentile  are 
being  gathered  into  one  and  compacted  into  a  new 
humanity. 

I.  The  Church  is  a  house  built  for  an  Occupant  Its 
quality  and  size,  and  the  mode  of  its  construction  are 
determined  by  its  destination.  It  is  built  to  suit  the 
great  Inhabitant,  who  says  concerning  the  new  Zion  as 
He  said  of  the  old  in  figure  :  "  This  is  my  rest  for  ever  ! 
Here  will  I  dwell,  for  I  have  desired  it."  God,  who  is 
spirit,  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  fabric  of  material 
nature  for  His  temple,  nor  does  "  the  Most  High  dwell 

143 


144  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

in  houses  made  by  men's  hands."  He  seeks  our  spirit 
for  His  abode,  and 

"  Doth  prefer 
Before  all  temples  the  upright  heart  and  pure." 

In  the  collective  life  and  spirit  of  humanity  God  claims 
to  reside,  that  He  may  fill  it  with  His  glory  and  His 
love.  "  Know  you  not,"  cries  the  apostle  to  the  once 
debased  Corinthians,  "  that  you  are  God's  temple,  and 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwells  in  you  ?  " 

Nothing  that  is  bestowed  upon  man  terminates  in 
himself.  The  deHverance  of  Jewish  and  Gentile 
believers  from  their  personal  sins,  their  re-instatement 
into  the  broken  unity  of  mankind  and  the  destruction 
in  them  of  their  old  enmities,  of  the  antipathies  gene- 
rated by  their  common  rebellion  against  God — these 
great  results  of  Christ's  sacrifice  were  means  to  a 
further  end.  "  Hallowed  be  Thy  name  "  is  our  first 
petition  to  the  Father  in  heaven  ;  "  Glory  to  God  in  the 
highest"  is  the  key-note  of  the  angels'  song,  that  runs 
through  all  the  harmonies  of  "  peace  on  earth,"  through 
every  strain  of  the  melody  of  life.  Religion  is  the  mis- 
tress, not  the  handmaid  in  human  affairs.  She  will  never 
consent  to  become  a  mere  ethical  discipline,  an  instru- 
ment and  subordinate  stage  in  social  evolution,  a  ladder 
held  for  men  to  cHmb  up  into  their  self-sufficiency. 

The  old  temptation  of  the  Garden,  "  Ye  shall  be  as 
gods,"  has  come  upon  our  age  in  a  new  and  fascinating 
form.  ''  You  shall  be  as  gods,"  it  is  whispered  :  ^'  nay, 
you  are  God,  and  there  is  no  other.  The  supernatural 
is  a  dream.  The  Christian  story  is  a  fable.  There  is 
none  to  fear  or  adore  above  yourselves  ! "  Man  is  to 
worship  his  collective  self,  his  own  humanity.  '4  am 
the  Lord  thy  God,"  the  great  idol  says,  **  that  brought 
thee  up  out  of  animalism  and  savagery,  and  me  only  shalt 


ii.  19-22.]  GOD'S    TEMPLE  IN  HUMANITY.  145 

thou  serve  ! — -Love  and  faithful  service  to  one's  kind,  a 
holy  passion  for  the  welfare  of  the  race,  for  the  relief  of 
human  ignorance  and  poverty  and  pain,  this  is  the  true 
religion ;  and  you  need  no  other.  Its  obligation  is 
instinctive,  its  benefits  immediate  and  palpable  ;  and  it 
gives  a  consecration  to  individual  life  that  dignifies  and 
chastens,  while  it  calls  into  exercise  all  our  faculties." 

Yes,  we  willingly  admit,  such  human  service  is 
*^  religion  pure  and  undefiled,  befoi^e  our  God  and 
Father"  If  service  is  rendered  to  our  kind  as  worship 
to  the  Father  of  men ;  if  we  reverence  in  each  man  the 
image  of  God  and  the  shrine  of  His  Spirit ;  if  we  are 
seeking  to  cleanse  and  adorn  in  men  the  temple  where 
the  Most  High  shall  dwell,  the  humblest  work  done  for 
our  fellows'  good  is  done  for  Him.  The  best  human 
charity  is  rendered  for  the  love  of  God.  "  Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  mind,  soul,  and 
strength.  This,"  said  Jesus,  "is  the  first  and  great 
commandment.  And  the  second  is  like  unto  it:  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself  On  these  two 
commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets." 
On  these  two  hangs  the  welfare  of  men  and  nations. 

But  the  first  commandment  must  come  first.  The 
second  law  of  Jesus  never  has  been  or  will  be  kept  to 
purpose  without  the  first.  Humanitarian  sentiments, 
dreams  of  universal  brotherhood,  projects  of  social 
reform,  may  seem  for  the  moment  to  gain  by  their  inde- 
pendence of  religion  a  certain  zest  and  emphasis ;  but 
they  are  without  root  and  vitahty.  Their  energy;  fails, 
or  spends  itself  in  revolt;  their  glow  declines,  their 
purity  is  stained.  The  leaders  and  first  enthusiasts 
trained  in  the  school  of  Christ,  whose  spirit,  in  vain 
repudiated,  lives  on  in  them,  find  themselves  betrayed 
and  alone.     The  coarse  selfishness  and  materialism  of 

10 


146  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

the  human  heart  win  an  easy  triumph  over  a  visionary 
altruism.  ''  Without  me,"  says  Jesus  Christ,  ''  ye  can 
do  nothing." 

In  the  Hght  of  God's  glory  man  learns  to  reverence 
his  nature  and  understand  the  vocation  of  his  race. 
The  love  of  God  touches  the  deep  and  enduring  springs 
of  human  action.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  and  of  God 
commands  an  absolute  devotion  ;  its  service  inspires 
unfaltering  courage  and  invincible  patience.  There  is 
a  grandeur  and  a  certainty,  of  which  the  noblest  secular 
aims  fall  short,  in  the  hopes  of  those  who  are  striving 
together  for  the  faith  of  the  gospel,  and  who  work  to 
build  human  life  into  a  dwelling-place  for  God. 

II.  God's  temple  in  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  while 
it  is  one,  is  also  manifold.  ''  In  whom  each  several 
building  [or  every  part  of  the  building^^~\,  while  it  is  com- 
pacted together,  grows  into  a  holy  temple  in  the  Lord." 

The  image  is  that  of  an  extensive  pile  of  buildings, 
such  as  the  ancient  temples  commonly  were,  in  process 
of  construction  at  different  points  over  a  wide  area. 
The  builders  work  in  concert,  upon  a  common  plan. 
The  several  parts  of  the  work  are  adjusted  to  each 
other ;  and  the  various  operations  in  process  are  so 
harmonized,  that  the  entire  construction  preserves  the 
unity  of  the  architect's  design.  Such  an  edifice  was 
the  apostolic  Church — one,  but  of  many  parts — in  its 
diverse  gifts  and  multiplied  activities  animated  by 
one  Spirit  and  directed  towards   one   Divine  purpose. 

Jerusalem,  Antioch,  Ephesus,  Corinth,  Rome — what 
a  various  scene  of  activity  these  centres  of  Christian 


*  Ilacra  oiKoSofjuf],  according  to  the  well-established  critical  reading. 
For  ttSs  without  the  article,  implying  a  various  whole,  compare  irdarjs 
KTiaecjs  in  Col.  i.  15  ;  iraaa  ypatpri,  2  Tim.  iii.  16;  iv  Trdarj  dvacrrpoiprj, 
I  Peter  i.  15 ;  and  9e6s  Trdcriys  xapt7"os,  i  Peter  v.  10. 


ii.  19-22.]  GOD'S   TEMPLE  IN  HUMANITY. 


147 


life  presented  !     The  Churches  founded  in  these  great 
cities  must   have  differed  in  many  features.     Even  in 
the  communities  of  his  own  province  the  apostle  did 
not,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  impose  a  uniform  admini- 
stration.   St  Peter  and  St  Paul  carried  out  their  plans 
independently,  only  maintaining  a  general  understanding 
with  each  other.     The  apostohc  founders,  inspired  by 
one  and  the  self-same  Spirit,  could  labour  at  a  distance, 
upon  material  and  by  methods  extremely  various,  with 
entire    confidence  in    each   other  and   with    an   assur- 
ance of  the  unity  of  result  which  their   teaching  and 
administration    would    exhibit.       The    many    buildings 
rested  on  the  one  foundation  of  the  apostles.    "Whether 
it  were  I  or  they,"  says  our  apostle,  "  so  we  preach, 
and  so  you  believed."     Where  there  is  the  same  Spirit 
and  the  same  Lord,  men  do  not  need  to  be  scrupulous 
about   visible    conformity.       Elasticity    and    individual 
initiative  admit  of  entire  harmony  of  principle.     The 
hand  may  do  its  work  without  irritating  and  obstructing 
the  eye ;  and  the  foot  run  on  its  errands  without  mis- 
trusting the  ear. 

Such  was  the  Catholicism  of  the  apostohc  age.  The 
true  reading  of  verse  21,  as  it  is  restored  by  the  Re- 
visers, is  an  incidental  witness  to  the  date  of  the  epistle. 
A  churchman  of  the  second  century,  writing  under 
Paul's  name  in  the  interests  of  cathoHc  unity  as  it  was 
then  understood,  would  scarcely  have  penned  such  a 
sentence  without  attaching  to  the  subject  the  definite 
article:  he  must  have  written  ''all  the  building,"  as 
the  copyists  from  whom  the  received  text  proceeds 
very  naturally  have  done.  From  that  time  onwards, 
as  the  system  of  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  was 
developed,  external  unity  was  more  and  more  strictly 
imposed.      The    original     "  diversity    of    operations  " 


[48  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


became  a  rigid  uniformity.  The  Cliurch  swallowed  up 
the  Churches.  Finally,  the  spiritual  bureaucracy  of 
Rome  gathered  all  ecclesiastical  power  into  one  centre, 
and  placed  the  direction  of  Western  Christendom  in 
the  hands  of  a  single  priest,  whom  it  declared  to  be  the 
Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ  and  endowed  with  the  Divine 
attribute  of  infallibility. 

Had  not  Jerusalem  been  overthrown  and  its  Church 
destroyed,  the  hierarchical  movement  would  probably 
have  made  that  city,  rather  than  Rome,  its  centre. 
This  was  in  fact  the  tendency,  if  not  the  express 
purpose  of  the  Judaistic  party  in  the  Church.  St  Paul 
had  vindicated  in  his  earlier  epistles  the  freedom  of 
thje  Gentile  Christian  communities,  and  their  right  of 
non-conformity  to  Jewish  usage.  In  the  words  ''  each 
several  building,  fitly  framed  together,"  there  is  an 
echo  of  this  controversy.  The  Churches  of  his  mission 
claim  a  standing  side  by  side  with  those  founded  by 
other  apostles.  For  himself  and  his  Gentile  brethren 
he  seems  to  say,  in  the  presence  of  the  primitive 
Church  and  its  leaders  :  '^  As  they  are  Christ's,  so  also 
are  we." 

The  co-operation  of  the  different  parts  of  the  body 
of  Christ  is  essential  to  their  collective  growth.  Let 
all  Churches  beware  of  crushing  dissent.  Blows  aimed 
at  our  Christian  neighbours  recoil  upon  ourselves. 
Undermining  their  foundation,  we  shake  our  own. 
Next  to  positive  corruption  of  doctrine  and  life,  nothing 
hinders  so  greatly  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
as  the  claim  to  exclusive  legitimacy  made  on  behalf  of 
ancient  Church  organizations.  Their  representatives 
would  have  every  part  of  God's  temple  framed  upon 
one  pattern.  They  refuse  a  place  on  the  apostolic 
foundation  to  all  Churches,  however  numerous,  how- 


r9-23.]  GOD'S   TEMPLE  IN  HUMANITY.  149 


ever  rich  in  faith  and  good  works,  however  strong  the 
historical  justification  for  their  existence,  however  clear 
the  marks  they  bear  of  the  Spirit's  seal,  which  do 
not  conform  to  the  rule  they  themselves  have  received. 
Their  rites  and  ministry,  they  assert,  are  those  alone 
approved  by  Chnist  and  authorized  by  His  apostles, 
within  a  given  area.  They  refuse  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship  to  men  who  are  doing  Christ's  work  by  their 
side ;  they  isolate  their  flocks,  as  far  as  possible,  from 
intercourse  with  the  Christian  communities  around  them. 

This  policy  on  the  part  of  any  Christian  Church,  or 
Church  party,  is  contrary  to  the  mind  of  Christ  and 
to  the  example  of  His  apostles.  Those  who  hold  aloof 
from  the  comity  of  the  Churches  and  prevent  the  many 
buildings  of  God's  temple  being  fitly  framed  together, 
must  bear  their  judgement,  whosoever  they  be.  They 
prefer  conquest  to  peace,  but  that  conquest  they  will 
never  win ;  it  would  be  fatal  to  themselves.  Let  the 
elder  sister  frankly  allow  the  birthright  of  the  younger 
sisters  of  Christ's  house  in  these  lands,  and  be  our 
example  in  justice  and  in  charity.  Great  will  be  her 
honour  ;  great  the  glory  won  for  our  common  Lord. 

''  Every  building  fitly  framed  together  groweth  into 
a  holy  temple  in  the  Lord."  The  subject  is  distributive ; 
the  predicate  collective.  The  parts  give  place  to  the 
whole  in  the  writer's  mind.  As  each  several  piece  of 
the  structure,  each  cell  or  chapel  in  the  temple,  spreads 
out  to  join  its  companion  buildings  and  adjusts  itself 
to  the  parts  around  it,  the  edifice  grows  into  a  richer 
completeness  and  becomes  more  fit  for  its  sacred  pur- 
pose. ^  The  separate  buildings,  distant  in  place  or 
historical  character,  approximate  by  extension,  as  they 
spread  over  the  unoccupied  ground  between  them  and  as 
the  connecting  links  are  multiplied.     At  last  a  point  is 


I50  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

reached  at  which  they  will  become  continuous.  Growing 
into  each  other  step  by  step  and  forming  across  the 
diminishing  distance  a  web  of  mutual  attachment  con- 
stantly thickening,  they  will  insensibly,  by  a  natural 
and  vital  growth,  become  one  in  visible  communion  as 
they  are  one  in  their  underlying  faith. 

When  each  organ  of  the  body  in  its  own  degree  is 
perfect  and  holds  its  place  in  keeping  with  the  rest,  we 
think  no  longer  of  their  individual  perfection,  of  the 
charm  of  this  feature  or  of  that  ;  they  are  forgotten  in 
the  beauty  of  the  perfect  frame.  So  it  will  be  in  the 
body  of  Christ,  when  its  several  communions,  cleansed 
and  filled  with  His  Spirit,  each  honouring  the  vocation 
of  the  others,  shall  in  freedom  and  in  love  by  a  spon- 
taneous movement  be  gathered  into  one.  Their 
strength  will  then  be  no  longer  weakened  and  their 
spirit  chafed  by  internal  conflict.  With  united  forces 
and  irresistible  energy,  they  will  assail  the  kingdom  of 
darkness  and  subjugate  the  world  to  Christ. 

For  this  consummation  our  Saviour  prayed  in  the 
last  hours  before  His  death  :  "  that  they  all  may  be 
one,  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in  Thee,  that 
they  also  may  be  in  us,  that  the  world  may  believe 
that  Thou  didst  send  me"  (John  xvii.  21).  Did  He 
fear  that  His  little  flock  of  the  Twelve  would  be  parted 
by  dissensions  ?  Or  did  He  not  look  onward  to  the 
future,  and  see  the  "  offences  that  must  come,"  the 
alienations  and  fierce  conflicts  that  would  arise  aihongst 
His  people,  and  the  blood  that  would  be  shed  in  His 
name  ?  Yet  beyond  these  divisions,  on  the  horizon 
of  the  end  of  the  age.  He  foresaw  the  day  when  the 
wounds  of  His  Church  would  be  healed,  when  the  sword 
that  He  had  brought  on  the  earth  would  be  sheathed, 
and  through  the  unity  of  faith  and  love  in  His  people 


ii.  19-22.]  GOD'S   TEMPLE  IN  HUMANITY.  151 


all  mankind  would  at  last  come  to  acknowledge  Him 
and  the  Father  who  had  sent  Him. 

III.  To  appearance,  we  are  many  rather  than  one 
who  bear  the  name  of  Christ.  But  we  are  one  not- 
withstanding, if  below  the  variety  of  superstructure 
our  faith  rests  upon  the  witness  of  the  apostles,  and 
the  several  buildings  have  Christ  Jesus  Himself  for 
chief  corner-stone.  The  one  foundation  and  the  one 
Spirit  constitute  the  unity  of  God's  temple  in  the 
Church. 

''The  apostles  and  prophets"  are  named  as  a  single 
body,  the  prophets  being  doubtless,  in  this  passage  and 
in  chapters  iii.  5  and  iv.  1 1,  the  existing  prophets  of 
the  apostolic  Church,  whose  inspired  teaching  supple- 
mented that  of  the  apostles  and  helped  to  lay  down 
the  foundation  of  revealed  truth.  That  foundation  has 
been,  through  the  providence  of  God,  preserved  for  later 
ages  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament,  on  which 
the  faith  of  Christians  has  rested  ever  since.  Such  a 
prophet  Barnabas  was  in  the  first  days  (Acts  xiii.  I), 
and  such  was  the  unknown,  but  deeply  inspired  writer 
of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews ;  such  prophets,  again, 
were  SS.  Mark  and  Luke,  the  Evangelists.  Prophecy 
was  not  a  stated  gift  of  office.  Just  as  there  were 
''  teachers  "  in  the  early  Church  whose  knowledge  and 
eloquence  did  not  entitle  them  to  bear  rule,  so  prophecy 
was  frequently  exercised  by  private  persons  and  carried 
with  it  no  such  official  authority  as  belonged  in  the 
highest  degree  to  the  apostles. 

It  is  thought  surprising  that  St  Paul  should  write 
thus,  in  so  general  and  distant  a  fashion,  of  the  order  to 
which  he  belonged  (comp.  iii.  5).  This,  it  is  said,  is 
the  language  of  a  later  generation,  which  looks  back 
with    reverence   to   the    inspired   Founders.     But    this 


152  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

letter  is  written,  as  we  observed  at  the  outset,  from  a 
peculiarly  objective  and  impersonal  standpoint.  It 
differs  in  this  respect  from  other  epistles  of  St  Paul. 
He  is  addressing  a  number  of  Churches,  with  some  of 
which  his  personal  relations  were  slight  and  distant. 
He  is  contemplating  the  Church  in  its  most  general 
character.  He  is  not  the  only  founder  of  Churches ; 
he  is  one  of  a  band  of  colleagues,  working  in  different 
regions.  It  is  natural  that  he  should  use  the  plural 
here.  He  sets  his  successors  an  example  of  the  recog- 
nition due  to  fellow-labourers  whose  work  bears  the 
seal  of  Christ's  Spirit. 

These  men  have  laid  the  foundation — Peter  and  Paul, 
John  and  James,  Barnabas  and  Silas,  and  the  rest. 
They  are  our  spiritual  progenitors,  the  fathers  of  our 
faith.  We  see  Jesus  Christ  through  their  eyes ;  we 
read  His  teaching,  and  catch  His  Spirit  in  their  words. 
Their  testimony,  in  its  essential  facts,  stands  secure 
in  the  confidence  of  mankind.  Nor  was  it  their  word 
alone,  but  the  men  themselves — their  character,  their 
life  and  work — laid  for  the  Church  its  historical  founda- 
tion. This  "glorious  company  of  the  apostles"  formed 
the  first  course  in  the  new  building,  on  whose  firmness 
and  strength  the  stability  of  the  entire  structure  depends. 
Their  virtues  and  their  sufferings,  as  well  as  the  revela- 
tions made  through  them,  have  guided  the  thoughts  and 
shaped  the  life  of  countless  multitudes  of  men,  of  the 
best  and  wisest  men  in  all  ages  since.  They  have 
fixed  the  standard  of  Christian  doctrine  and  the  type  of 
Christian  character.  At  our  best,  we  are  but  imitators 
of  them  as  they  were  of  Christ. 

In  regard  to  the  chief  part  of  their  teaching,  both  as 
to  its  meaning  and  authority,  the  great  bulk  of  Christians 
in    all   communions    are   agreed.     The    keen   disputes 


ii.  19-22.]  GOnS   TEMPLE  IN  HUMANITY.  153 


which  engage  us  upon  certain  points,  testify  to  the 
cardinal  importance  which  is  felt  on  all  hands  to  attach 
to  the  words  of  Christ's  chosen  apostles.  Their  living 
witness  is  in  our  midst.  The  self-same  Spirit  that 
wrought  in  them,  works  amongst  men  and  dwells  in  the 
communion  of  saints.  He  still  reveals  the  things  of 
Christ,  and  guides  into  truth  the  wiUing  and  obedient. 

So  "the  firm  foundation  of  God  standeth  "  ;  though 
men,  shaken  themselves,  seem  to  see  it  tremble.  On 
that  basis  we  may  labour  confidently  and  loyally,  with 
those  amongst  whom  the  Master  has  placed  us.  Some 
of  our  fellow-workmen  disown  and  would  hinder  us  : 
that  shall  not  prevent  us  from  rejoicing  in  their  good 
work,  and  admiring  the  gold  and  precious  stones  that 
they  contribute  to  the  fabric.  The  Lord  of  the  temple 
will  know  how  to  use  the  labour  of  His  many  servants. 
He  will  forgive  and  compose  their  strife,  who  are  jealous 
for  His  name.  He  will  shape  their  narrow  aims  to  His 
larger  purposes.  Out  of  their  discords  He  will  draw 
a  finer  harmony.  As  the  great  house  grows  to  its 
dimensions,  as  the  workmen  by  the  extension  of  their 
labours  come  nearer  to  each  other  and  their  sectional 
plans  merge  in  Christ's  great  purpose,  reproaches  will 
cease  and  misunderstandings  vanish.  Over  many  who 
followed  not  with  us  and  whom  we  counted  but  as 
"  strangers  and  sojourners,"  as  men  whose  place  within 
the  walls  of  Zion  was  doubtful  and  unauthorized,  we 
shall  hereafter  rejoice  with  a  joy  not  unmixed  with  self- 
upbraiding,  to  find  them  in  the  fullest  right  our  fellow- 
citizens  amongst  the  saints  and  of  the  household  of 
God. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  supreme  Builder  of  the 
Church,  as  He  is  the  supreme  witness  to  Jesus  Christ 
(John  XV.  26,  27).     The  words  in  the  Spt'rit,  closing  the 


154  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

verse  with  solemn  emphasis,  denote  not  the  mode  of 
God's  habitation — that  is  self-evident — but  the  agency 
engaged  in  building  this  new  house  of  God.  With  one 
^'  chief  corner-stone  "  to  rest  upon  and  one  Spirit  to 
inspire  and  control  them,  the  apostles  and  prophets 
laid  their  foundation  and  the  Church  was  "builded 
together "  for  a  habitation  of  God.  Hence  its  unity. 
But  for  this  sovereign  influence  the  primitive  founders 
of  Christianity,  like  later  Church  leaders,  would  have 
fallen  into  fatal  discord.  Modern  critics,  reasoning 
upon  natural  grounds  and  not  understanding  the  grace 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  assume  that  they  did  thus  quarrel 
and  contend.  Had  this  been  so,  no  foundation  could 
ever  have  been  laid  ;  the  Church  would  have  fallen  to 
pieces  at  the  very  beginning. 

In  the  hands  of  these  faithful  and  wise  stewards 
of  God's  dispensation,  "the  stone  which  the  builders 
rejected  was  made  the  head  of  the  corner."  Their  work 
has  been  tried  by  fire  and  by  flood  ;  and  it  abides. 
The  rock  of  Zion  stands  unworn  by  time,  unshaken  by 
the  conflict  of  ages, — amidst  the  movements  of  history 
and  the  shifting  currents  of  thought  the  one  foundation 
for  the  peace  and  true  welfare  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE  SECRET  OF  THE  AGES. 

"  For  this  cause  I  Paul,  the  prisoner  of  Christ  Jesus  in  behalf  of  you 
Gentiles, — if  so  be  that  ye  have  heard  of  the  dispensation  of  that  grace 
of  God  which  was  given  me  toward  you ;  how  that  by  revelation  was 
made  known  unto  me  the  mystery  (as  I  wrote  afore  in  few  words, 
whereby,  when  ye  read,  ye  can  perceive  my  understanding  in  the 
mystery  of  Christ),  which  in  other  generations  was  not  made  known 
unto  the  sons  of  men,  as  it  hath  now  been  revealed  unto  His  holy 
apostles  and  prophets  in  the  Spirit ;  ^o  wit,  that  the  Gentiles  are  fellow- 
heirs,  and  fellow-members  of  the  body,  and  fellow-partakers  of  the 
promise  in  Christ  Jesus  through  the  gospel,  whereof  I  was  made  a 
minister,  according  to  the  gift  of  that  grace  of  God  which  was  given  me 
according  to  the  working  of  His  power.  Unto  me,  who  am  less  than 
the  least  of  all  saints,  was  this  grace  given,  to  preach  unto  the  Gentiles 
the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ  ;  and  to  bring  to  light  what  is  the 
dispensation  of  the  mystery  which  from  all  ages  hath  been  hid  in  God 
who  created  all  things." — Eph.  iii.  1-9. 

VERSES  2-13  are  in  form  a  parenthesis.  They 
interrupt  the  prayer  which  appears  to  be  com- 
mencing in  the  first  verse  and  is  not  resumed  until 
verse  14.  This  intervening  period  is  parenthetical, 
however,  in  appearance  more  than  in  reality.  The 
matter  it  contains  is  so  weighty  and  so  essential  to  the 
argument  and  structure  of  the  epistle,  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  treat  it  as  a  mere  aside.  The  writer  intends, 
at  the  pause  which  occurs  after  the  paragraph  just 
concluded  (ii.   22),  to  interpose  a  few  words  of  prayer 

155 


156  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

before  passing  on  to  the  next  topic.  But  in  the  act 
of  doing  so,  this  subject  of  which  his  mind  is  full — 
viz.,  that  of  his  own  relation  to  God's  great  purpose 
for  mankind — forces  itself  upon  him  ;  and  the  prayer 
that  was  on  his  lips  is  pent  up  for  a  few  moments 
longer,  until  it  flows  forth  again,  in  richer  measure,  in 
verses  14-19. 

Like  chapter  i.  3-14,  this  passage  is  an  extreme 
instance  of  St  Paul's  amorphous  style.  His  sentences 
are  not  composed  ;  they  are  spun  in  a  continuous 
thread,  an  endless  chain  of  prepositional,  participial, 
and  relative  adjuncts.  They  grow  under  our  eyes 
like  living  things,  putting  forth  new  processes  every 
moment,  now  in  this  and  now  in  that  direction.  Within 
the  main  parenthesis  we  soon  come  upon  another 
parenthesis  including  verses  3^  and  4  ("  as  I  wrote 
afore,"  etc.) ;  and  at  several  points  the  grammatical 
connexion  is  uncertain.  In  its  general  scope,  this 
intricate  sentence  resolves  itself  into  a  statement  of 
ivhat  God  has  wrought  in  the  apostle  toward  the  accom- 
plishment of  His  great  plan.  It  thus  completes  the 
exposition  given  already  of  that  which  God  wrought  in 
Christ  for  the  Churchy  and  that  which  He  has  wrought 
through  Christ  in  Gentile  believers  in  fulfilment  of  the 
same  end. 

Verses  1-9  speak  (i)  of  the  mystery  itself — God's 
gracious  intention  toward  the  human  race,  unknown 
in  earlier  times  ;  and  (2)  of  the  man  to  whom,  above 
others,  it  was  given  to  make  known  the  secret. 

I.  The  mystery  is  defined  twice  over.  First,  it  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  "in  Christ  Jesus  through  the 
gospel  the  Gentiles  are  co-heirs  and  co-incorporate  and 
co-partners  in  the  promise"  (ver.  6) ;  and  secondly,  it 


iii.  1-9.]  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  AGES.  157 

is  "the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ"  (ver.  8).  The 
latter  phrase  gathers  to  a  point  what  is  diversely 
expressed  in  the  former. 

Christ  is,  to  St  Paul,  the  centre  and  the  sum  of 
the  mysteries  of  Divine  truth,  of  the  whole  enigma  of 
existence.  In  the  parallel  epistle  he  calls  Him  *'  the 
mystery  of  God — in  whom  are  all  the  treasures  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge  hidden "  (Col.  ii.  2,  3  :  R.V.). 
The  mystery  of  God,  discovered  in  Christ,  was  hidden 
out  of  the  sight  and  reach  of  previous  times.  Now, 
by  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  it  is  made  the  common 
property  of  mankind  (Col.  i.  25-28). 

In  close  connexion  with  these  statements,  St  Paul 
speaks  there,  as  he  does  here,  of  his  own  heavy  suffer- 
ings endured  on  this  account  and  the  joy  they  gave 
him.  He  is  the  instrument  of  a  glorious  purpose 
worthy  of  God ;  he  is  the  mouthpiece  of  a  revelation 
waiting  to  be  spoken  since  the  world  began,  that  is 
addressed  to  all  mankind  and  interests  heaven  along 
with  earth.  The  greatness  of  his  office  is  commen- 
surate with  the  greatness  of  the  truth  given  him  to 
announce. 

The  mystery,  as  we  have  said,  consists  in  Christ, 
This  we  learned  from  chapter  i.  4,  5,  and  9,  10.  In 
Christ  the  Eternal  lodged  His  purpose  and  laid  His 
plans  for  the  world.  It  is  His  fulness  that  the  fulness 
of  the  times  dispenses.  The  Old  Testament,  the 
reservoir  of  previous  revelation,  had  Him  for  its  close- 
kept  secret,  "  held  in  silence  through  eternal  times  " 
(Rom.  xvi.  25-27).  The  drift  of  its  prophecies,  the 
focus  of  its  converging  lights,  the  veiled  magnet  towards 
which  its  spiritual  indications  pointed,  was  "Christ." 
He  "  was  the  spiritual  rock  that  followed "  Israel  in 
its  wanderings,  from  whose  springs  the  people  drank, 


IS8  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

as  it  answered  to  the  touch  of  one  and  now  another  of 
the  holy  men  of  old.  The  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ 
gives  unity,  substance,  and  meaning  to  the  history  of 
Israel,  which  is  otherwise  a  pathway  without  goal,  a 
problem  without  solution.  Priest  and  prophet,  law 
and  sacrifice;  the  kingly  Son  of  David,  and  the  suffering 
Servant  of  Jehovah;  the  Seed  of  the  woman  with  bruised 
foot  bruising  the  serpent's  head ;  the  Lord  whom  His 
people  seek,  suddenly  coming  to  His  temple  ;  the  Stone 
hewn  from  the  mountains  without  hands,  that  grows 
till  it  fills  the  earth — the  manifold  representations  of 
Israel's  ideal,  centre  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The 
lines  of  the  great  figure  drawn  on  the  canvas  of 
prophecy — disconnected  as  they  seemed  and  without 
a  plan,  giving  rise  to  a  thousand  dreams  and  specula- 
tions— are  filled  out  and  drawn  into  shape  and  take  life 
and  substance  in  Him.  They  are  found  to  be  parts  of 
a  consistent  whole,  sketches  and  studies  of  this  frag- 
ment or  of  that  belonging  to  the  consummate  Person 
and  the  comprehensive  plan  manifest  in  the  revelation 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

But  while  Christ  gathers  into  Himself  the  accumu- 
lated wealth  of  former  revelation.  His  fulness  is  not 
measured  thereby  or  exhausted.  He  solves  the  problems 
of  the  past;  He  unseals  the  ancient  mysteries.  But 
He  creates  new  and  deeper  problems,  some  explained 
in  the  continued  teaching  of  His  Spirit  and  His  provi- 
dence, others  that  remain,  or  emerge  from  time  to  time 
to  tax  the  faith  and  understanding  of  His  Church. 
There  are  the  mysteries  surrounding  His  own  Person, 
with  which  the  Greek  Church  struggled  long — His 
eternal  Sonship,  His  pre-incarnate  relation  to  mankind 
and  the  creatures,  the  final  outcome  of  the  mediatorial 
reign  and  its  subordination  to  the  absolute  sovereignty 


iii.  1-9.]  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  AGES.  159 

of  God.  These  depths  St  Paul  sounded  with  his 
plummet ;  but  he  found  them  unfathomable.  Theo- 
logical science  has  explored  and  defined  them,  and 
illuminated  them  on  many  sides,  but  cannot  reach  to 
their  inmost  mystery.  Then  there  is  the  problem  of 
the  atonement,  with  all  the  cognate  difficulties  touching 
the  origin  of  sin,  its  heredity  and  its  personal  guilt, 
touching  the  adjustment  of  law  and  grace,  the  method 
of  justification,  the  extent  and  efficacy  of  Christ's  re- 
deeming work,  touching  the  future  destiny  and  eternal 
state  of  souls.  Another  class  of  questions  largely 
occupies  the  minds  of  thoughtful  men  to-day.  They 
are  studying  the  relation  of  Christ  and  His  Church 
to  nature  and  the  outward  world,  the  bearings  of 
Christian  truth  upon  social  conditions,  the  working  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  in  communities,  and  the  place  of  man's 
collective  life  in  the  progress  and  upbuilding  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ. 

For  such  inquiries  the  Spirit  of  wisdom  and  revela- 
tion is  given  to  those  who  humbly  seek  His  light. 
He  is  given  afresh  in  every  age.  Out  of  Christ's  un- 
searchable riches  ever-new  resources  are  forthcoming 
at  His  Church's  need,  new  treasures  lying  hidden  in 
the  old  for  him  who  can  extract  them.  But  His  riches, 
however  far  they  are  investigated,  remain  unsearchable, 
and  inexhaustible  however  largely  drawn  upon.  God's 
ways  may  be  tracked  further  and  further  in  each  genera- 
tion ;  they  will  remain  to  the  end,  as  they  were  to  the 
mind  of  Paul  at  the  hmit  of  his  bold  researches,  ''  past 
finding  out."  The  inspired  apostle  confesses  himself 
a  child  in  Divine  learning :  "  We  know  in  part,"  he 
says,  "we  prophesy  in  part."  Oh  the  depths  of  '*  hidden 
wisdom  "  unimagined  now,  that  are  in  store  for  us  in 
Christ,  "  fore-ordained  before  the  worlds  unto  our  glory  1 " 


i6o  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  particular  aspect  of  the  mystery  of  Christ  with 
which  the  apostle  is  concerned,  is  that  of  His  relation- 
ship to  the  Gentile  world.  "  The  grace  of  God,"  he 
says  in  verse  2,  "  was  given  me  for  you"  Such  is 
''  the  dispensation "  in  which  God  is  now  engaged. 
Upon  this  lavish  and  undreamed-of  scale  He  is  dealing 
forth  salvation  to  men.  St  Paul  describes  this  revela- 
tion of  God's  goodness  to  the  Gentiles  by  three  parallel 
but  distinct  terms  in  verse  6.  They  ''  are  fellow-heirs  " 
— a  word  that  carries  us  back  to  chapter  i.  11-13,  and 
assures  the  Gentile  readers  of  their  final  redemption 
and  heavenly  glory.*  They  ''  are  of  the  same  body  " — 
which  sums  up  all  that  we  have  learnt  from  chapter  ii. 
1 1-22.  And  they  "are  fellow-partakers  of  the  promise  " 
— receiving  upon  a  footing  of  equal  privilege  with 
Jewish  believers  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  and  the  blessings 
promised  to  Israel  in  the  Messianic  kingdom. 

In  virtue  of  the  dispensation  committed  to  him,  St 
Paul  formally  proclaims  the  incorporation  of  the  Gentiles 
into  the  body  of  Christ,  their  investiture  with  the  fran- 
chise of  faith.  The  forgiveness  of  sins  is  theirs,  the 
light  of  God's  smile,  the  breath  of  His  Spirit,  the 
worship  and  fellowship  of  His  Church,  the  tasks  and 
honours  of  His  service.  The  incarnation  of  Christ  is 
theirs ;  His  life,  teaching,  and  miracles  ;  His  cross  is 
theirs,  His  resurrection  and  ascension,  and  His  second 
coming,  and  the  glories  of  His  heavenly  kingdom — all 
made  their  own  on  the  bare  condition  of  a  penitent 
and  obedient  faith.  The  past  is  theirs — is  ours,  along 
with  the  present  and  the  future.  The  God  of  Israel 
is  our  God.  Abraham  is  our  father,  though  his  sons 
after  the  flesh  acknowledge   us   not.     Their  prophets 

*  See  Gal.  iii.  7,  v.  5  ;  Rom.  viii.  14-25  ;  i  Peter  i.  4,  5. 


1-9-]  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  AGES.  i6i 


prophesied  of  the  grace  that  should  come  unto  us. 
Their  poets  sing  the  songs  of  Zion  to  Gentile  peoples 
in  a  hundred  tongues.  They  lead  our  prayers  and 
praises.  In  their  words  we  find  expression  for  our 
heart-griefs  and  joys.  At  the  wedding-feast  or  by 
the  grave-side,  amidst  "  the  multitude  that  keep  holy 
day"  and  in  "dry  lands"  where  the  soul  thirsts  for 
God's  ordinances,  we  carry  the  Psalmists  with  us  and 
the  teachers  of  Israel. 

What  a  boundless  wealth  we  Gentiles,  taught  by 
Jesus  Christ,  have  discovered  in  the  Jewish  Bible ! 
When  will  the  Jewish  people  understand  that  their 
greatness  is  in  Him,  that  the  light  which  lightens  the 
Gentiles  is  their  true  glory?  When  will  they  accept 
their  part  in  the  riches  of  which  they  have  made  all 
the  world  partakers  ?  The  mystery  of  our  participation 
in  their  Christ  has  now  been  ''  revealed  to  the  sons  of 
men  "  long  enough.  Is  it  not  time  that  they  themselves 
should  see  it,  that  the  veil  should  be  lifted  from  the 
heart  of  Israel?  The  disclosure  was  in  the  first 
instance  so  astounding,  so  contrary  to  their  cherished 
expectations,  that  one  can  scarcely  wonder  if  it  was 
at  first  rejected.  But  God  the  King  of  the  ages  has 
been  asserting  and  re-asserting  the  fact  in  the  course 
of  history  ever  since.  How  vain  to  fight  against  Him  I 
how  useless  to  deny  the  victory  of  the  Nazarene  ! 

II.  But  there  was  in  Israel  an  election  of  grace, — men 
of  unveiled  heart  to  whom  the  mystery  of  ages  was 
disclosed.  '*  The  secret  of  Jehovah  is  with  them  that 
fear  Him,  and  He  will  show  them  His  covenant." 
Such  is  the  rule  of  revelation.  To  the  like  effect 
Christ  said  :"  The  pure  in  heart  shall  see  God.  He 
that  willeth  to  do  His  will  shall  know  of  the  doctrine." 

The  light  of  God's  universal  love  had  come  into  the 

II 


1 62  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

world;  but  where  it  fell  on  cold  or  impure  hearts,  it 
shone  in  vain.  The  mystery  "was  made  manifest  to 
His  s^mfe,"  writes  the  apostle  in  Colossians  i.  26.  So 
in  this  passage  :  ''  revealed  to  His  holy  apostles  and 
prophets  in  the  Spirit."  The  pure  eye  sees  the  true 
light.  This  was  the  condition  which  made  it  possible 
for  Paul  himself  and  his  partners  in  the  gospel  to  be 
the  bearers  of  this  august  revelation.  It  needed  sincere 
and  devoted  men,  willing  to  be  taught  of  God,  wiUing  to 
surrender  every  prejudice  and  the  preconceptions  of 
flesh  and  blood,  in  order  to  receive  and  convey  to  the 
world  thoughts  of  God  so  much  larger  and  loftier  than 
the  thoughts  of  men.  To  such  men — true  disciples, 
loyal  at  all  costs  to  God  and  truth,  holy  and  humble 
of  heart — Jesus  Christ  gave  His  great  commission 
and  bade  them  '^go  and  make  disciples  of  all  the 
nations." 

The  secret  was  further  disclosed  to  Peter,  when  he 
was  taught  at  the  house  of  Cornelius  ''  not  to  call  any 
man  common  or  unclean."  He  saw,  and  the  Church 
of  Jerusalem  saw  and  confessed  that  God  "  gave  the 
like  gift"  to  uncircumcised  Gentiles  as  to  themselves 
and  had  "  purified  their  hearts  by  faith."  Many  pro- 
phetic voices,  unrecorded,  confirmed  this  revelation.  Of 
all  this  Paul  is  thinking  here.  It  is  to  his  predecessors 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  rather  than  to  himself 
that  he  refers  when  he  speaks  of  "  holy  apostles  and 
prophets"  in  verse  5.  His  readers  would  naturally 
turn  to  them  in  coming  to  this  plural  expression.  The 
original  apostles  of  Jesus  and  witnesses  of  His  truth 
first  attested  the  doctrine  of  universal  grace  ;  and  that 
they  did  so  was  a  fact  of  vital  importance  to  Paul  and 
the  Gentile  Church.  The  significance  of  this  fact  is 
shown  by  the  stress  which  is  laid  upon   it    and    the 


-9.]  THE  SECRET  OF   THE  AGES.  163 


prominence  given  to  it  in  the  narrative  of  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles. 

The  apostle  frequently  alludes  to  revelations  made 
to  himself;  he  never  claims  that  this  chief  matter 
was  revealed  personally  to  himself.  It  was  an  open 
secret  when  Saul  entered  the  Church.  "  Whereof/'  he 
says,  in  verse  7,  "I  became  minister  ^^ )  again,  ''to  me 
was  this  grace  given,  to  preach  to  the  Gentiles  Christ's 
unsearchable  riches."  The  leaders  of  the  Jewish 
Christian  Church  knew  well  that  their  message  was 
meant  for  all  the  world.  But  the  abstract  know- 
ledge of  a  truth  is  one  thing ;  the  practical  power  to 
realize  it  is  another.  Until  the  new  apostle  came  upon 
the  field,  there 'was  no  man  ready  for  this  great  task 
and  equal  to  it.  It  was  at  this  crisis  that  Paul  was 
raised  up.  Then  ''  it  pleased  God  to  reveal  His  Son  " 
in  him,  that  he  might  "  preach  Him  among  the 
Gentiles." 

The  effect  of  this  summons  upon  Paul  himself  was 
overwhelming,  and  continued  to  be  so  till  the  end  of 
life.  The  immense  favour  humbles  him  to  the  dust. 
He  strains  language,  heaping  comparative  upon  super- 
lative, to  describe  his  astonishment  as  the  import  of  his 
mission  unfolds  itself:  "To  me,  less  than  the  least  of 
all  the  saints,  was  this  grace  given."  That  Saul  the 
Pharisee  and  the  persecutor,  the  most  unworthy  and 
most  unlikely  of  men,  should  be  the  chosen  vessel  to 
bear  Christ's  riches  to  the  Gentile  world,  how  shall 
he  sufficiently  give  thanks  for  this  !  how  express  his 
wonder  at  the  unfathomable  wisdom  and  goodness  that 
the  choice  displays  in  the  mind  of  God  !  But  we  can 
see  well  that  this  choice  was  precisely  the  fittest.  A 
Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  steeped  in  Jewish  traditions 
and  glorying  in  his  sacred  ancestry,  none  knew  better 


1 64  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

than  the  apostle  Paul  how  rich  were  the  treasures 
stored  in  the  house  of  Abraham  that  he  had  to  make 
over  to  the  Gentiles.  A  true  son  of  that  house,  he  was 
the  fittest  to  lead  in  the  aliens,  to  show  them  its  precious 
things  and  make  them  at  home  within  its  walls. 

To  himself  the  office  was  an  unceasing  delight.  The 
universalism  of  the  gospel — a  commonplace  of  our 
modern  rhetoric — had  burst  upon  his  mind  in  its  unspoilt 
freshness  and  undimmed  splendour.  He  is  sailing  out 
into  an  undiscovered  ocean,  with  a  boundless  horizon. 
A  new  heaven  and  earth  are  opened  to  him  in  the  reve- 
lation that  the  Gentiles  are  partakers  of  the  promise  in 
Christ  Jesus.  He  is  entranced,  as  he  writes,  with  the 
largeness  of  the  Divine  purpose,  with  the  magnificent 
sweep  and  scope  of  the  designs  of  grace.  These  verses 
give  us  the  warm  and  genuine  impression  made  upon 
the  hearts  of  its  first  recipients  by  the  disclosure  of 
the  universal  destination  of  the  gospel  of  Christ. 

St  Paul's  work,  in  carrying  out  the  dispensation  of 
this  mystery,  was  twofold.  It  was  both  external  and 
internal.  He  was  a  "  herald  and  apostle  "  ;  he  was 
also  "teacher  of  the  Gentiles  in  faith  and  truth" 
(i  Tim.  ii.  7).  He  had  in  the  former  capacity  to  carry 
the  good  tidings  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the 
Roman  empire,  to  spread  it  abroad  as  far  as  his  feet 
could  travel  and  his  voice  reach,  and  thus  "  to  fulfil  the 
gospel  of  Christ."  But  there  was  another,  mental 
task,  as  necessary  and  still  more  difficult,  which  like- 
wise fell  to  his  lot.  He  had  to  think  out  the  gospel. 
It  was  his  office  to  unfold  and  apply  it  to  the  wants  of 
a  new  world,  to  solve  by  its  aid  the  problems  that  con- 
fronted him  as  evangelist  and  pastor, — questions  that 
contained  the  seed  and  beginning  of  the  intellectual 
difficulties  of  the  Church  in  future  times.     He  had  to 


iii.  1-9.]  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  AGES.  165 


free  the  gospel  from  the  swaddling-bands  of  Judaism, 
to  emancipate  the  spirit  from  the  letter  of  a  mechanical 
and  legal  interpretation.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had 
equally  to  guard  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  from  the 
dissolving  influences  of  Gentile  scepticism  and  theo- 
sophy.  Fighting  his  way  through  fierce  and  incessant 
opposition  on  both  sides,  the  apostle  Paul  led  the  mind 
of  the  Church  onwards  and  guides  it  still  in  the  faith 
and  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God.  These  noble  epistles 
are  the  fruit  and  record  of  St  Paul's  theological  work. 
Through  them  he  has  left  a  deeper  mark  on  the  con- 
science of  the  world  than  any  one  man  besides,  except 
the  Master  of  truth  who  was  more  than  man. 

The  apostle  was  not  unaware  of  the  vast  influence 
he  now  possessed,  and  that  must  accrue  to  him  in  the 
future  from  the  transcendent  interest  of  the  doctrines 
committed  to  his  charge.  There  is  no  false  modesty 
about  this  splendidly  gifted  man.  It  is  his  not  only 
to  ''  preach  to  the  Gentiles  the  good  news  of  Christ's 
unsearchable  riches";  but  more  than  that,  "  to  bring  to 
light  what  is  the  administration  of  the  mystery  that  has 
been  hidden  away  from  the  ages  in  God  who  created 
all  things."  The  great  secret  was  out  while  Saul  of 
Tarsus  was  still  a  persecutor  and  blasphemer.  But 
as  to  the  management  and  dispensation  of  the  mystery, 
the  practical  handling  of  it,  as  to  the  mode  and  way  in 
which  God  would  convey  and  apply  it  to  the  world 
at  large,  and  as  to  the  bearings  and  consequences  of 
this  momentous  truth, — the  apostle  Paul,  and  no  one 
but  he,  had  all  this  to  expound  and  set  in  order.  He 
was,  in  fact,  the  architect  of  Christian  doctrine. 

Theologically,  Peter  and  John  himself  were  Paul's 
debtors ;  and  are  included  amongst  the  ''  all  men  "  of 
verse  9  (if  this  reading  of  the  text  is  correct).     St  John 


1 66  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


had,  it  is  true,  a  more  direct  intuition  into  the  mind  of 
Christ  and  rose  to  an  even  loftier  height  of  contempla- 
tion ;  but  the  labours  and  the  logic  of  St  Paul  provided 
the  field  into  which  he  entered  in  his  ripe  old  age 
spent  at  Ephesus.  John,  who  absorbed  and  assimilated 
everything  that  belonged  to  Christ  and  found  for 
everything  its  principle  and  centre  in  the  Master  of  his 
youth — "  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life  " — passed 
through  the  school  of  Paul.  With  the  rest,  he  learnt 
through  the  new  apostle  to  see  more  perfectly  "  what 
is  the  dispensation  of  the  mystery  hidden  from  the 
ages  in  God." 

Well  persuaded  is  our  apostle  that  all  readers  of  this 
letter  in  the  Asian  towns,  if  they  have  not  known  it 
before,  will  now  "  perceive  "  his  "  understanding  in  the 
mystery  of  Christ."  All  ages  have  discerned  it  since. 
And  the  ages  to  come  will  measure  its  value  better 
than  we  can  do  now. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

EARTH   TEACHING  HEAVEN. 

' '  To  the  intent  that  now  unto  the  principalities  and  powers  in  the 
heavenly  places  might  be  made  known  through  the  Church  the  mani- 
fold wisdom  of  God,  according  to  the  purpose  of  the  ages  which  He 
formed  in  the  Christ,  even  Jesus  our  Lord  :  in  whom  we  have  boldness 
and  access  in  confidence  through  our  faith  in  Him.  Wherefore  I  ask 
that  ye  faint  not  at  my  tribulations  for  you,  which  are  your  glory." — 
Eph.  iii.  10-13. 

"/  "HE  mystery  hidden  since  the  ages  began,  in  God 
who  created  all  things :  so  the  last  paragraph  con- 
cluded. The  added  phrase  "through  Jesus  Christ" 
is  a  comment  of  the  pious  reader,  that  has  been  incor- 
porated in  the  received  text ;  but  it  is  wanting  in  the 
oldest  copies,  and  is  out  of  place.  The  apostle  is  not 
concerned  with  the  prerogatives  of  Christ,  but  with  the 
scope  of  the  Christian  economy.  He  is  displaying  the 
breadth  and  grandeur  of  the  dispensation  of  grace, 
the  infinite  range  of  the  Divine  plans  and  operations 
of  which  it  forms  the  centre.  Its  secret  was  cherished 
in  the  Eternal  Mind.  Its  foundations  are  laid  in  the 
very  basis  of  the  world.  And  the  disclosure  of  it  now 
being  made  brings  new  light  and  wisdom  to  the 
powers  of  the  celestial  realms. 

"  There  is  nothing  covered,"  said  Jesus,  "  which  shall 

not  be  revealed,  and  hidden  which  shall  not  be  known," 

167 


1 68  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  mysteries  which  God  sets  before  His  intelligent 
creatures,  are  promises  of  knowledge ;  they  are  drafts, 
to  be  honoured  in  due  time,  upon  the  treasures  of 
wisdom  hidden  in  Christ.  So  this  great  secret  of  the 
destiny  of  the  Gentile  world  was  "  from  all  ages  hidden, 
in  order  that  now  through  the  Church  it  might  be  made 
known,"  and  by  its  means  God's  wisdom,  to  these 
sublime  intelligences.  This  intention  was  a  part  of 
the  '^plan  of  the  ages"  formed  in  Christ  (ver.  ii). 
God  designed  by  our  redemption  to  bless  higher  races 
along  with  our  own.  The  elder  sons  of  God,  those 
^'  morning  stars "  of  creation,  are  schooled  and  in- 
structed by  what  is  transpiring  here  upon  earth. 

To  some  this  will  appear  to  be  mere  extravagance. 
They  see  in  such  expressions  the  marks  of  an  un- 
restrained enthusiasm,  of  theological  speculation  pushed 
beyond  its  limits  and  unchecked  by  any  just  knowledge 
of  the  physical  universe.  This  censure  would  be 
plausible  and  it  might  seem  that  the  apostle  had 
extended  the  mission  of  the  gospel  beyond  its  province, 
were  it  not  for  what  he  says  in  verse  1 1  :  This  ^'  pur- 
pose of  the  ages  "  God  ''  made  in  the  Christy  even  Jesus 
our  Lordy  Jesus  Christ  links  together  angels  and 
men.  He  draws  after  Him  to  earth  the  eyes  of  heaven. 
Christ's  coming  to  this  world  and  identification  with  it 
unite  to  it  enduringly  the  great  worlds  above  us.  The 
scenes  enacted  upon  this  planet  and  the  events  of  its 
religious  history  have  sent  their  shock  through  the 
universe.  The  incarnation  of  the  vSon  of  God  gives  to 
human  life  a  boundless  interest  and  significance.  It  is 
idle  to  oppose  to  this  conviction  the  fact  of  the  little- 
ness of  the  terrestrial  globe.  Spiritual  and  physical 
magnitudes  are  incommensurable.  You  cannot  measure 
a  man's  soul  by  the  size  of  his  dwelling-house.    Science 


iii.  IO-I3.]  EARTH   TEACHING  HEAVEN.  169 

teaches  us  that  the  most  powerful  forces  may  exist  and 
operate  within  the  narrowest  space.  A  microscopic 
cell  may  contain  the  potential  life  of  a  world.  If  our 
earth  is  but  a  grain  of  sand  to  the  astronomer,  it  has 
been  the  home  of  Godhead.  It  is  the  world  for  which 
God  spared  not  to  give  His  own  Son  ! 

Here,  then,  lies  the  centre  of  the  apostle's  thoughts 
in  this  paragraph  :  God^s  all-comprehending  purpose  in 
Christ.  The  magnitude  and  completeness  of  this  plan 
are  indicated  by  the  fact  that  it  embraces  in  its 
purview  the  angelic  powers  and  their  enlightenment.  So 
understanding  it,  our  human  faith  gains  confidence  and 
courage  (vv,  12,  13). 

I.  The  textual  critics  restore  the  definite  article 
which  later  copyists  had  dropped  before  the  word 
Christ  in  verse  11.  We  have  already  remarked  the 
frequency  of  ''the  Christ"  in  this  epistle.*  Once 
besides  this  peculiar  combination  of  the  names  of  our 
Saviour  occurs — in  Colossians  ii.  6,  where  Lightfoot 
renders  it  the  Christ,  even  Jesus  the  Lord.  So  it 
should  be  rendered  in  this  place.  St  Paul  sets  forth 
the  purpose  of  "  God  who  created  all  things."  He  is 
looking  back  through  "the  ages"  during  which  the 
Divine  plan  was  kept  secret.  God  was  all  the  time 
designing  His  work  of  mercy,  pointing  meanwhile  the 
hopes  of  men  by  token  and  promise  to  the  Coming  One. 
The  Messiah  was  the  burden  of  those  prophetic  ages. 
That  inscrutable  Christ  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
veiled  mystery  of  Jewish  hope,  stands  manifested 
before  us  and  challenges  our  faith  in  the  glorious 
person  of  ''Jesus  our  Lord."     This  singular  turn  of 


*  See  note  on  p.  47 ;  also  pp.  83, 


170  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

expression  identifies  the  ideal  and  the  real,  the  promise 
and  fulfilment,  the  dream  of  Old  Testament  prophecy 
and  the  fact  of  New  Testament  history.  For  Jesus 
our  Lord  is  the  very  Christ  to  whom  the  generations 
before  His  coming  looked  forward  out  of  their  twilight 
with  wistful  expectancy. 

Not  without  meaning  is  He  called  "  Jesus  our  Lord^ 
The  ''  principalities  and  powers  "  of  the  heavenly  places 
are  in  our  view  (ver.  lo).  These  potentates  some  of 
the  Asian  Christians  were  fain  to  worship.  ''  See  ye 
do  it  not,"  Paul  seems  to  say.  "  Jesus,  the  Christ  of 
God,  is  alone  our  Lord;  not  these.  He  is  our  Lord 
and  theirs  (i.  21,  22).  As  our  Lord  He  commands 
their  homage,  and  gives  them  lessons  through  His 
Church  in  God's  deep  counsels."  Everything  that  the 
apostle  says  tends  to  exalt  our  Redeemer  and  to 
enhance  our  confidence  in  Him.  His  position  is 
central  and  supreme,  in  regard  alike  to  the  ages  of 
time  and  the  powers  of  the  universe.  In  His  hand  is 
the  key  to  all  mysteries.  He  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega, 
the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of  God's  ways.  He  is 
the  centre  of  Israel,  Israel  of  the  world  and  the  human 
ages ;  while  the  world  of  men  is  bound  through  Him 
to  the  higher  spheres  of  being,  over  which  He  too 
presides. 

There  is  a  splendid  intellectual  courage,  an  incredible 
boldness  and  reach  of  thought  in  St  Paul's  conception 
of  the  sovereignty  of  Christ.  Remember  that  He  of 
whom  these  things  are  said,  but  thirty  years  before  died 
a  felon's  death  in  the  sight  of  the  Jewish  people.  It  is 
not  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whose  name  is  hallowed  by 
the  lips  of  milHons  and  glorified  by  the  triumphs  of 
centuries  upon  centuries  past,  but  the  Nazarene  with 
the  obscurity  of  His  life  and  the  cruel  shame  of  Cal- 


IO-I3.]  EARTH   TEACHING  HEAVEN.  171 


vary  fresh  in  the  recollection  of  all  men.  With  what 
immense  force  had  the  facts  of  His  glorification  wrought 
upon  men's  minds — His  resurrection  and  ascension,  the 
witness  of  His  Spirit  and  the  virtue  of  His  gospel — 
for  it  to  be  possi'ble  to  speak  of  Him  thus,  within  a 
generation  of  His  death  !  While  ''  the  foolishness  of 
preaching "  such  a  Christ  and  the  weakness  in  which 
He  was  crucified  were  patent  to  all  eyes,  unrelieved  by 
the  influence  of  time  and  the  glamour  of  success,  how 
was  it  that  the  first  believers  raised  Jesus  to  this  limit- 
less glory  and  dominion  ?  It  was  through  the  convic- 
tion, certified  by  outward  fact  and  inward  experience, 
that  "  He  liveth  by  the  power  of  God."  Thus  Peter 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost :  "  By  the  right  hand  of  God 
exalted.  He  hath  shed  forth  this  which  ye  now  see  and 
hear."  The  resurrection  from  the  dead,  the  demon- 
stration of  the  Spirit  proved  Jesus  Christ  to  be  that 
which  He  had  claimed  to  be,  the  Saviour  of  men  and 
the  eternal  Son  of  God. 

The  supremacy  here  assigned  to  Christ  is  a  con- 
sequence of  the  exaltation  described  at  the  close  of  the 
first  chapter.  There  we  see  the  height,  here  the 
breadth  and  length  of  His  dominion.  If  He  is  raised 
from  the  grave  so  high  that  all  created  powers  and 
names  are  beneath  His  feet,  we  cannot  wonder  that  the 
past  ages  were  employed  in  preparing  His  way,  that 
the  basis  of  His  throne  lies  in  the  foundation  of  the 
world. 

II.  The  universe  is  one.  There  is  a  solidarity  of 
rational  and  moral  interests  amongst  all  intelligences. 
Granting  the  existence  of  such  beings  as  the  angels 
of  Scripture,  we  should  expect  them  to  be  profoundly 
concerned  in  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ.  They  are 
the  ''watchers"   and   ''holy  ones"  spoken  of  by  the 


172  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

later  Isaiah  and  Daniel,  whom  the  Lord  has  "  set  upon 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem  "  and  who  survey  the  affairs 
of  nations.  Such  was  "  the  angel  who  talked "  with 
Zechariah  in  his  vision,  and  whom  the  prophet  over- 
heard pleading  for  Jerusalem.  In  the  Apocalypse, 
again,  we  find  the  angels  acting  as  God's  unseen  ex- 
ecutive. We  decline  to  believe  that  these  superhuman 
creatures  are  nothing  more  than  apocalyptic  machinery, 
that  they  are  creations  of  fancy  employed  to  give  a 
Hvelier  aspect  to  spiritual  truth.  ''  Cannot  I  pray  to 
my  Father,  and  He  shall  presently  give  me  more  than 
twelve  legions  of  angels  ?  "  So  Jesus  said,  in  the  most 
solemn  hour  of  His  life.  And  who  can  forget  His  tender 
words  concerning  the  little  children,  whose  ^'angels  do 
always  behold  the  face  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven"? 

The  apostle  Paul,  who  denounces  ^'worship  of  the 
angels  "  in  the  fellow  epistle  to  this,  earnestly  believed 
in  their  existence  and  their  interest  in  human  affairs. 
If  he  did  not  write  the  words  of  Hebrews  i.  14,  he 
certainly  held  that  "  they  are  ministering  spirits  sent 
forth  to  do  service  for  the  sake  of  them  that  shall 
inherit  salvation."  Most  clearly  is  their  relationship 
to  the  Church  affirmed  by  the  words  of  the  revealing 
angel  to  the  apostle  John  :  ^'  I  am  a  fellow-servant  with 
thee  and  with  thy  brethren  the  prophets,  and  with  them 
that  keep  the  words  of  this  book." 

Christ's  service  is  the  high  school  of  wisdom  for  the 
universe.  These  princes  of  heaven  win  by  their 
ministry  to  Christ  and  His  Church  a  great  reward. 
Their  intelligence,  however  lofty  its  range,  is  finite. 
Their  keen  and  burning  intuition  could  not  penetrate 
the  mystery  of  God's  intentions  toward  this  world. 
The  revelations  of  the  latter  days — the  incarnation,  the 
cross,  the  publication  of  the  gospel,  the  outpouring  of 


iii.  IO-I3.]  EARTH   TEACHING  HEAVEN.  173 

the  Spirit — were  full  of  surprises  to  the  heavenly 
watchers.  They  sang  at  Bethlehem ;  they  hid  their 
faces  and  shrouded  heaven  in  blackness  at  the  sight 
of  Calvary.  They  bent  down  with  eager  observation 
and  searching  thought  ''  desiring  to  look  into "  the 
things  made  known  to  men  (i  Peter  i.  12), — close  and 
sympathetic  students  of  the  Church's  history.  The 
apostle  felt  that  there  were  other  eyes  bent  upon  him 
than  those  of  his  fellow-men,  and  that  he  was  acting 
in  a  grander  arena  than  the  visible  world.  ''We  are 
a  spectacle,"  he  says,  "  to  angels  and  to  men."  So  he 
enjoins  faithfulness  on  Timothy,  and  with  Timothy  on 
all  who  bear  the  charge  of  the  gospel,  ''  before  God  and 
Christ  Jesus,  and  the  elect  angels."  What  is  public 
opinion,  what  the  applause  or  derision  of  the  crowd, 
to  him  who  lives  and  acts  in  the  presence  of  these 
august  spectators  ? 

"Through  the  Church,"  we  are  told,  the  angels  of 
God  are  "  now  "  having  His  "  manifold  wisdom  made 
known  "  to  them.  It  is  not  from  the  abstract  scheme 
of  salvation,  from  the  theory  or  theology  of  the  Church 
that  they  get  this  education,  but  through  the  living 
Church  herself.  The  Saviour's  mission  to  earth  created 
a  problem  for  them,  the  development  of  which  they 
follow  with  the  most  intense  and  sympathetic  interest. 
With  what  solicitude  they  watch  the  conflict  between 
good  and  evil  and  the  varying  progress  of  Christ's 
kingdom  amongst  men  !  Many  things,  doubtless,  that 
engage  our  attention  and  fill  a  large  space  in  our  Church 
records,  are  of  little  account  with  them ;  and  much  that 
passes  in  obscurity,  names  and  deeds  unchronicled  by 
fame,  are  written  in  heaven  and  pondered  in  other 
spheres.  No  brave  and  true  blow  is  struck  in  Christ's 
battle,  but  it  has  the  admiration  of  these  high  spectators. 


174  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

No  advance  is  made  in  character  and  habit,  in  Christian 
intelligence  and  efficiency  and  the  application  of  the 
gospel  to  human  need,  but  they  notice  and  approve. 
When  the  cause  of  the  Church  and  the  salvation  of 
mankind  go  forward,  when  righteousness  and  peace 
triumph,  the  morning  stars  sing  together  and  the  sons 
of  God  shout  for  joy.  The  joy  that  there  is  in  the 
presence  of  the  angels  of  God  over  the  repenting  sinner, 
is  not  the  joy  of  sympathy  or  pity  only  ;  it  is  the  delight 
of  growing  wisdom,  of  deepening  insight  into  the  ways 
of  God,  into  the  heart  of  the  Father  and  the  love  that 
passes  knowledge. 

One  would  suppose  from  what  the  apostle  hints, 
that  our  world  presents  a  problem  unique  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  one  which  raises  questions  more  com- 
plicated and  crucial  than  have  elsewhere  arisen.  The 
heavenly  princedoms  are  learning  through  the  Church 
''  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God."  His  love,  in  its  pure 
essence,  those  happy  and  godhke  beings  know.  They 
have  lived  for  ages  in  its  unclouded  light.  His  power 
and  skill  they  may  see  displayed  in  proportions  im- 
mensely grander  than  this  puny  globe  of  ours  presents. 
God's  justice,  it  may  be,  and  the  thunders  of  His  law 
have  issued  forth  in  other  regions  clothed  with  a 
splendour  of  which  the  scenes  of  Sinai  were  but  a  faint 
emblem.  It  is  in  the  combination  of  the  manifold 
principles  of  the  Divine  government  that  the  peculiarity 
of  the  human  problem  appears  to  lie.  The  delicate 
and  continuous  balancing  of  forces  in  God's  plan  of 
dealing  with  this  world,  the  reconciliation  of  seeming 
incompatibilities,  the  issue  found  from  positions  of 
hopeless  contradiction,  the  accord  of  goodness  with 
severity,  of  inflexible  rectitude  and  truth  with  fatherly 
compassion,  afford  to    the  greatest  minds    of  heaven 


iii.  IO-I3.]  EARTH   TEACHING  HEAVEN.  175 


a  spectacle  and  a  study  altogether  wonderful.  So 
amongst  ourselves  the  child  of  a  noble  house,  reared 
in  cultured  ease  and  shielded  from  moral  peril,  in  visit- 
ing the  homes  of  poverty  in  the  crowded  city  finds  a 
new  world  opened  to  him,  that  can  teach  him  Divine 
lessons  if  he  has  the  heart  to  learn.  His  mind  is 
awakened,  his  sympathies  enriched.  He  hears  the 
world's  true  voice,  "  the  still,  sad  music  of  humanity." 
He  measures  the  heights  and  depths  of  man's  nature. 
A  host  of  questions  are  thrust  upon  him,  whose  urgency 
he  had  scarcely  guessed ;  and  wide  ranges  of  truth  are 
lighted  up  for  him,  which  before  were  distant  and 
unreal.  The  highest  have  ever  to  learn  from  the  lowest 
in  Christ's  school,  the  seeming-wise  from  the  simple ; 
even  the  pure  and  good,  from  contact  with  the  fallen 
whom  they  seek  to  save. 

And  "  the  principalities  and  the  powers  in  the 
heavenly  places"  are,  it  seems,  willing  to  learn  from 
those  below  them.  As  they  traced  the  course  of  human 
history  in  those  "  eternal  times "  during  which  the 
mystery  lay  wrapped  in  silence,  the  angel  watchers 
were  too  wise  to  play  the  sceptic,  too  cautious  to 
criticize  an  unfinished  plan  and  arraign  a  justice  they 
could  not  yet  understand.  With  a  dignified  patience 
they  waited  the  uphfting  of  the  curtain  and  the  un- 
ravelling of  the  entangled  plot.  They  looked  for  the 
coming  of  the  Promised  One.  So  in  due  time  they 
witnessed  and,  for  their  reward,  assisted  in  His  mani- 
festation. With  the  same  docility  these  high  sharers 
of  our  theological  inquiries  still  wait  to  see  the  end  of 
the  Lord  and  to  take  their  part  in  the  denouement  of 
the  time-drama,  in  the  revelation  of  the  sons  of  God. 
Let  us  copy  their  long  patience.  God  has  not  made  us 
to  mock  us.     "What  thou  knowest  not  now,"  said  the 


176  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE   EPHESIANS. 

great   Revealer,  the    Master  of  all  mysteries,   to  His 
disciple,  "thou  shalt  know  hereafter." 

These  wise  elder  brothers  of  ours,  rich  in  the  lore  of 
eternity,  foresee  the  things  to  come  as  we  cannot  do. 
They  are  far  above  the  smoke  and  dust  of  the  earthly 
conflict.  The  doubts  that  shake  the  strongest  souls 
amongst  us,  the  cries  of  the  hour  which  confuse  and 
deceive  us,  do  not  trouble  them.  They  behold  us  in 
our  weakness,  our  fears  and  our  divisions ;  but  they 
also  look  on  Him  who  "  sits  expecting  till  His  enemies 
are  made  His  footstool."  They  see  how  calmly  He 
sits,  how  patiently  expectant,  while  the  sound  of  clash- 
ing arms  and  the  rage  and  tumult  of  the  peoples  go  up 
from  the  earth.  They  mark  the  steadiness  with  which 
through  century  after  century,  in  spite  of  refluent 
waves,  the  tide  of  mercy  rises,  and  still  rises  on  the 
shores  of  earth.  Thrones,  systems,  civilizations  have 
gone  down ;  one  after  another  of  the  powers  that  strove 
to  crush  or  to  corrupt  Christ's  Church  has  disappeared ; 
and  still  the  name  of  Jesus  lives  and  spreads.  It  has 
traversed  every  continent  and  sea ;  it  stands  at  the  head 
of  the  living  and  moving  forces  of  the  world.  Those 
who  come  pearest  to  the  angelic  point  of  view,  and 
judge  of  the  progress  of  things  not  by  the  froth  upon 
the  surface  but  by  the  trend  of  the  deeper  currents,  are 
the  most  confident  for  the  future  of  our  race.  The 
kingdom  of  Satan  will  not  fall  without  a  struggle — a 
last  struggle,  perhaps  more  furious  than  any  in  the  past 
- — but  it  is  doomed,  and  waning  to  its  end.  So  far  has 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  advanced,  so  mightily  does  the 
word  of  God  grow  and  prevail  in  the  earth,  that  faith 
may  well  assure  itself  of  the  promised  triumph.  Soon 
we  shall  shout :  "  Alleluia !  The  Lord  God  Omni- 
potent reigneth  1 " 


iii.  10-13.]  EARTH   TEACHING  HEAVEN. 


77 


III.  Suddenly,  according  to  his  wont,  the  apostle 
drops  down  from  the  heights  of  contemplation  to  the 
level  of  ordinary  fact.  He  descends  in  verse  12  from 
the  thought  of  the  eternal  purpose  and  the  education 
of  the  angels  to  the  struggling  Church.  The  assurance 
of  its  life  in  the  Spirit  corresponds  to  the  grandeur  of 
that  Divine  order  to  which  it  belongs.  "  In  whom  " 
he  says— in  this  Christ,  the  revealed-  mystery  of  ages 
past,  the  Teacher  of  angels  and  archangels— 'Sve  have 
our  freedom  and  confident  access  to  God  through  faith 
in  Him." 

If  it  be  "Jesus  our  Lord"  to  whom  these  attributes 
belong,  and  He  is  not  ashamed  of  us,  well  may  we 
draw  near  with  confidence  to  the  Father,  unashamed  in 
the  presence  of  His  holy  angels.  We  have  no  need  to 
be  abashed,  if  we  approach  the  Divine  Majesty  with 
a  true  faith  in  Christ.  His  name  gives  the  sinner 
access  to  the  holiest  place.  The  cherubim  sheathe 
their  swords  of  flame.  The  heavenly  warders  at  this 
passport  open  the  golden  gates.  We  ''come  unto 
Mount  Sion,  the  city  of  the  living  God,  and  to  an 
innumerable  company  of  angels."  Not  one  of  these 
mightinesses  and  ancient  peers  of  heaven,  not  Gabriel 
or  Michael  himself,  would  wish  or  dare  to  bar  our 
entrance. 

"  We  have  boldness  and  access,"  says  the  apostle,  as 
in  chapter  i.  7  :  "  We  have  redemption  in  His  blood." 
He  insists  upon  the  conscious  fact.  This  freedom  of 
approach  to  God,  this  sonship  of  faith,  is  no  hope  or 
dream  of  what  may  be  ;  it  is  a  present  reality,  a  filial 
cry  heard  in  a  multitude  both  of  Gentile  and  Jewish 
hearts  (comp.  ii.  18). 

This  sentence  exhibits  the  richness  of  synonyms 
characteristic  of  the   epistle.     There    is  boldness   ancj 

12 


178  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

access,  confidence  as  well  as  faith.  The  three  former 
terms  Bengel  nicely  distinguishes  :  ^'Hbertatem  oris  in 
orando,"  and  "  admissionem  in  fiducia  in  re,  et  corde  " — 
freedom  of  speech  (in  prayer),  of  status,  and  of  feeling. 
The  second  word  (as  in  chapter  ii.  i8  and  Romans 
V.  2)  appears  to  be  active  rather  than  passive  in  its 
force,  denoting  admittance  rather  than  access.  So 
that  while  the  former  of  the  parallel  terms  (boldness') 
describes  the  liberty  with  which  the  new-born  Church 
of  the  redeemed  address  themselves  to  God  the  Father 
and  the  unchecked  freedom  of  their  petitions,  the  latter 
{admittance)  takes  us  back  to  the  act  of  Christ  by 
which  He  introduced  us  to  the  Father's  presence  and 
gave  us  the  place  of  sons  in  the  house.  Being  thus 
admitted,  we  may  come  with  confidence  of  heart,  though 
we  be  less  than  the  least  of  saints.  Accepted  in 
the  Beloved,  we  are  within  our  right  if  we  say  to  the 
Father  : — 

"  Yet  in  Thy  Son  divinely  great, 
We  claim  Thy  providential  care. 
Boldly  we  stand  before  Thy  seat ; 
Our  Advocate  hath  placed  us  there  ! " 

"  Wherefore,"  concludes  the  imprisoned  apostle,  ''  I 
beg  you  not  to  lose  heart  at  my  afflictions  for  you." 
Assuredly  Paul  did  not  pray  that  he  should  not  lose 
heart,  as  some  interpret  his  meaning.  But  he  knew 
how  his  friends  were  fretting  and  wearying  over  his 
long  captivity.  Hence  he  writes  to  the  Philippians  : 
'^  I  would  have  you  know  that  the  things  which  have 
happened  to  me  have  turned  out  rather  to  the  further- 
ance of  the  gospel."  Hence,  too,  he  assures  the 
Colossians  earnestly  of  his  joy  in  suffering  for  their 
sake  (ch.  i.  24). 

The  Church  was  fearful  for  Paul's  life  and  distressed 


ill.  10-13.]  EARTH   TEACHING  HEAVEN. 


[79 


by  his  prolonged  sufferings.  It  missed  his  cheering 
presence  and  the  inspiration  of  his  voice.  Kut  if 
the  Church  is  so  dear  to  God  as  the  pages  of  this 
letter  show,  and  grounded  in  His  eternal  purposes, 
then  let  all  friends  of  Christ  take  courage.  The  ark 
freighted  with  such  fortunes  cannot  sink.  St  Paul  is 
a  martyr  for  Christ,  and  for  Gentile  Christendom  ! 
Every  stroke  that  falls  upon  him,  every  day  added  to 
the  months  of  his  imprisonment  helps  to  show  the 
worth  of  the  cause  he  has  espoused  and  gives  to  it 
increased  lustre :  ''  my  afQictions  for  you,  which  are 
your  glory." 

Those  that  love  him  should  boast  rather  than  grieve 
over  his  afQictions.  ^'  We  make  our  boast  in  you 
amongst  the  Churches  of  God,"  he  wrote  to  the  dis- 
tressed Thessalonians  (2  Ep.  i.  4),  "  for  your  patience 
and  faith  in  all  your  persecutions  and  afQictions  "  ;  so 
he  would  have  the  Churches  think  of  him.  When 
good  men  suffer  in  a  good  cause,  it  is  not  matter  for 
pity  and  dread,  but  rather  for  a  holy  pride. 


PRAYER  AND  PRAISE. 

Chapter  iii.   14-21. 


181 


To  virepexov  Trjs  yvcoaecjs  XpLaTov  'Irjaov  rod  Kvpiou  fxov. — -Phil.  iii.  8. 


[82 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE   COMPREHENSION  OF  CHRIST. 

"  For  this  cause  I  bow  my  knees  unto  the  Father,  from  whom  every 
family  in  heaven  and  upon  earth  is  named,  that  He  would  grant  you, 
according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory,  that  ye  may  be  strengthened  with 
power  through  His  Spirit  in  the  inward  man  :  that  the  Christ  may 
dwell  in  your  hearts  through  faith  ;  to  the  end  that  ye,  being  rooted 
and  grounded  in  love,  may  be  strong  to  comprehend  with  all  the  saints 
what  is  the  breadth  and  length  and  height  and  depth." — Eph.  iii.  14-18. 

IN  verse  14  the  prayer  is  resumed  which  the  apostle 
was  about  to  offer  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter, 
when  the  current  of  his  thoughts  carried  him  away. 
The  suppHcation  is  offered  "  for  this  cause  "  (vv.  I,  14), 
— it  arises  out  of  the  teaching  of  the  preceding  pages. 
Thinking  of  all  that  God  has  wrought  in  the  Christ, 
and  has  accomplished  by  means  of  His  gospel  in 
multitudes  of  Gentiles  as  well  as  Jews,  reconciling 
them  to  Himself  in  one  body  and  forming  them  to- 
gether into  a  temple  for  His  Spirit,  the  apostle  bows 
his  knees  before  God  on  their  behalf.  So  much  he 
had  in  mind,  when  at  the  end  of  the  second  chapter  he 
was  in  act  to  pray  for  the  Asian  Christians  that  they 
might  be  enabled  to  enter  into  this  far-reaching  pur- 
pose. Other  aspects  of  the  great  design  of  God  rose 
upon  the  writer's  mind  before  his  prayer  could  find 
expression.  He  has  told  us  of  his  own  part  in  dis- 
closing  it  to  the  world^  and  of  the  interest  it  excites 

183 


1 84  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

amongst  the  dwellers  in  heavenly  places, — thoughts 
full  of  comfort  for  the  Gentile  believers  troubled  by  his 
imprisonment  and  continued  sufferings.  These  further 
reflections  add  new  meaning  to  the  ''  For  this  cause" 
repeated  from  verse  i. 

The  prayer  which  he  offers  here  is  no  less  remark- 
able and  unique  in  his  epistles  than  the  act  of  praise 
in  chapter  i.  Addressing  himself  to  God  as  the  Father 
of  angels  and  of  men,  the  apostle  asks  that  He  will 
endow  the  readers  in  a  manner  corresponding  to  the 
wealth  of  His  glory — in  other  words,  that  the  gifts  He 
bestows  may  be  worthy  of  the  universal  Father,  worthy 
of  the  august  character  in  which  God  has  now  revealed 
Himself  to  mankind.  '  According  to  this  measure,  St 
Paul  beseeches  for  the  Church,  in  the  first  instance,  two 
gifts,  which  after  all  are  one, — viz.,  tlie  inward  strength 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  (ver.  i6),  and  the  permanent  indwelling 
of  Christ  (ver.  17).  These  gifts  he  asks  on  his  readers' 
behalf  with  a  view  to  their  gaining  two  further  bless- 
ings, which  are  also  one, — viz.,  the  power  to  understand 
the  Divine  plan  (ver.  18)  as  it  has  been  expounded  in 
this  letter,  and  so  to  know  the  love  of  Christ  (ver.  19). 
Still,  beyond  these  there  rises  in  the  distance  a  further 
end  for  man  and  the  Church  :  the  7xception  of  the  entire 
fulness  of  God.  Human  desire  and  thought  thus  reach 
their  limit ;  they  grasp  at  the  infinite. 

In  this  Chapter  we  will  strive  to  follow  the  apostle's 
prayer  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  verse,  where  it 
arrives  at  its  chief  aim  and  touches  the  main  thought 
of  the  epistle,  expressing  the  desire  that  all  believers 
may  have  power  to  realize  the  full  scope  of  the  salvation 
of  Christ  in  which  they  participate. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  to  join  in  St  Paul's 
invocation  :  ''  I  bow  my  knees  to  the  Father,  of  whom 


iii.  14-18.]     THE  COMPREHENSION  OF  CHRIST.  185 


[not  the  whole  family ,  but]  every  family  in  heaven  and 
upon  earth  is  named."  The  point  of  St  Paul's  original 
phrase  is  somewhat  lost  in  translation.  The  Greek 
word  for  family  {patria)  is  based  on  that  for  father 
{pater).  A  distinguished  father  anciently  gave  his  name 
to  his  descendants;  and  this  paternal  name  became 
the  bond  of  family  or  tribal  union,  and  the  title  which 
ennobled  the  race.  So  we  have  "  the  sons  of  Israel," 
the  "  sons  of  Aaron  "  or  "  of  Korah  " ;  and  in  Greek 
history,  the  Atridae,  the  Alcmaeonidae,  who  form  a  family 
of  many  kindred  households — a  clan,  or  gens,  designated 
by  their  ancestral  head.  Thus  Joseph  (in  Luke  ii.  4) 
is  described  as  **  being  of  the  house  and  family  \_patria^ 
of  David  "  ;  and  Jesus  is  ''  the  Son  of  David."  Now 
Scripture  speaks  also  o{  sons  of  God ;  and  these  of  two 
chief  orders.  There  are  those  "  in  heaven,"  who  form 
a  race  distinct  from  ourselves  in  origin — divided,  it  may 
be,  amongst  themselves  into  various  orders  and  dwelling 
in  their  several  homes  in  the  heavenly  places. 

Of  these  are  "the  sons  of  God"  whom  the  Book 
of  Job  pictures  appearing  in  the  Divine  court  and 
forming  a  "family  in  heaven."  When  Christ  promises 
(Luke  XX.  36)  that  His  disciples  in  their  immortal  state 
will  be  ^*  equal  to  the  angels,"  because  they  are  "  sons 
of  God,"  it  is  implied  that  the  angels  are  already 
and  by  birthright  sons  of  God.  Hence  in  Hebrews 
xii.  22,  23  the  angels  are  described  as  "  the  festal 
gathering  and  assembly  of  the  firstborn  enrolled  in 
heaven."  We,  the  sons  of  Adam,  with  our  many 
tribes  and  kindreds,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Elder 
Brother  constitute  a  new  family  of  God.  God  becomes 
our  Name-father,  and  permits  us  also  to  call  ourselves 
His  sons  through  faith.  Thus  the  Church  of  believers 
in  the  Son  of  God  constitutes  the   ''family  on   earth 


1 86  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

named "  from  the  same  Father  who  gave  His  name 
to  the  holy  angels,  our  wise  and  strong  and  brilliant 
elder  brothers.  They  and  we  are  alike  God's  offspring. 
Heaven  and  earth  are  kindred  spheres. 

This  passage  gives  to  God's  Fatherhood  the  same 
extension  that  chapter  i.  21  has  given  to  Christ's  Lord- 
ship. Every  order  of  creaturely  intelligence  acknow- 
ledges God  for  the  Author  of  its  being,  and  bows  to 
Christ  as  its  sovereign  Lord.  In  God's  name  of  Father 
the  entire  wealth  of  love  that  streams  forth  from  Him 
through  endless  ages  and  unmeasured  worlds  is  hidden  ; 
and  in  the  name  of  sons  of  God  there  is  contained  the 
blessedness  of  all  creatures  that  can  bear  His  image. 

L  What,  therefore,  shall  the  universal  Father  be 
asked  to  give  to  His  needy  children  upon  earth  ?  They 
have  newly  learnt  His  name ;  they  are  barely  recovered 
from  the  malady  of  their  sin,  fearful  of  trial,  weak  to 
meet  temptation.  Strength  is  their  first  necessity : 
"  I  bow  my  knees  to  the  Father  of  heaven  and  earth, 
praying  that  He  may  grant  you,  according  to  the  riches 
of  His  glory,  to  be  strengthened  by  the  entering  of  the 
Spirit  into  your  inward  man."  The  apostle  asked  them 
in  verse  13,  in  view  of  the  greatness  of  his  own  calling, 
to  be  of  good  courage  on  his  account ;  now  he  entreats 
God  so  to  reveal  to  them  His  glory  and  to  pour  into 
their  hearts  His  Spirit,  that  no  weakness  and  fear 
may  remain  in  them.  The  strengthening  of  which  he 
speaks  is  the  opposite  of  the  faintness  of  heart,  the 
failure  of  courage  deprecated  in  verse  13.  Using  the 
same  word,  the  apostle  bids  the  Corinthians  "  Quit 
themselves  like  men,  be  strong'^  (i  Ep.  xvi,  13).  He 
desires  for  the  Asian  believers  a  manful  heart,  the 
strength  that  meets  battle  and  danger  without  quailing. 


iii.  I4-I8.]      THE   COMPREHENSION  OF  CHRIST.  187 

The  source  of  this  strength  is  not  in  ourselves.  We 
are  to  be  '*  strengthened  with  [or  by]  power" — by 
"  the  power "  of  God  "  working  in  us "  (ver.  20),  the 
very  same  "  power,  exceeding  great,"  that  raised  Jesus 
our  Lord  from  the  dead  (i.  19).  This  superhuman 
might  of  God  operating  in  men  is  always  referred  to 
the  Holy  Spirit :  "  by  power  made  strong,"  he  says, 
^^  through  the  Spirit."  Nothing  is  more  familiar  in 
Scripture  than  the  conception  of  the  indwelling  Spirit 
of  God  as  the  source  of  moral  strength.  The  special 
power  that  belongs  to  the  gospel  Christ  ascribes  alto- 
gether to  this  cause.  "  Ye  shall  receive  power,"  He 
said  to  His  disciples,  "after  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
come  upon  you."  Hence  is  derived  the  vigour  of  a 
strong  faith,  the  valour  of  the  good  soldier  of  Christ 
Jesus,  the  courage  of  the  martyrs,  the  cheerful  and 
indomitable  patience  of  multitudes  of  obscure  sufferers 
for  righteousness'  sake.  There  is  a  great  truth  expressed 
when  we  describe  a  brave  and  enterprising  man  as 
a  man  of  spirit.  All  high  and  commanding  qualities 
of  soul  come  from  this  invisible  source.  They  are 
inspirations.  In  the  human  will,  with  its  vis  vivida,  its 
elasticity  and  buoyancy,  its  steadfastness  and  resolved 
purpose,  is  the  highest  type  of  force  and  the  image  of 
the  almighty  Will.  When  that  will  is  animated  and 
filled  with  "  the  Spirit,"  the  man  so  possessed  is  the 
embodiment  of  an  inconceivable  power.  Firm  principle, 
hope  and  constancy,  self-mastery,  superiority  to  pleasure 
and  pain, — all  the  elements  of  a  noble  courage  are 
proper  to  the  man  of  the  Spirit.  Such  power  is  not 
neutralized  by  our  infirmities;  it  asserts  itself  under 
their  limiting  conditions  and  makes  them  its  contri- 
butories.  ''  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee,"  said  Christ 
to  His  disabled   servant ;   "  for  power  is   perfected  in 


THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


weakness."  In  privation  and  loneliness,  in  old  age 
and  bodily  decay,  the  strength  of  God  in  the  human 
spirit  shines  with  its  purest  lustre.  Never  did  St  Paul 
rise  to  such  a  height  of  moral  ascendency  as  at  the 
time  when  he  was  *'  smitten  down  "  and  all  but  destroyed 
by  persecution  and  afQiction.  "  That  the  excellency 
of  the  power,"  he  says,  "  may  be  of  God,  and  not  from 
ourselves"  (2  Cor.  iv.  7-11). 

The  apostle  points  to  "  the  inner  man  "  as  the  seat 
of  this  invigoration,  thinking  perhaps  of  its  secrecy. 
While  the  world  buffets  and  dismays  the  Christian, 
new  vigour  and  joy  are  infused  into  his  soul.  The 
surface  waters  and  summer  brooks  of  comfort  fail ;  but 
there  opens  in  the  heart  a  spring  fed  by  the  river  of 
life  proceeding  from  the  throne  of  God.  Beneath  the 
toil-worn  frame,  the  mean  attire  and  friendless  condition 
of  the  prisoner  Paul — a  mark  for  the  world's  scorn — 
there  lives  a  strength  of  thought  and  will  mightier  than 
the  empire  of  the  Caesars,  a  power  of  the  Spirit  that 
is  to  dominate  the  centuries  to  come.  Of  this  omni- 
potent power  dwelling  in  the  Church  of  God,  the 
apostle  prays  that  every  one  of  his  readers  may 
partake. 

II.  Parallel  to  the  first  petition,  and  in  substance 
identical  with  it,  is  the  second  :  "  that  the  Christ  may 
make  His  dwelling  through  faith  in  your  hearts." 
Such,  it  seems  to  us,  is  the  relation  of  verses  16  and  17. 
Christ's  residence  in  the  heart  is  to  be  viewed  neither 
as  the  result,  nor  the  antecedent  of  the  strength  given 
by  the  Spirit  to  the  inward  man  :  the  two  are  simul- 
taneous ;  they  are  the  same  things  seen  in  a  varying 
light. 

We  observe  in  this  prayer  the  same  vein  of  Trini- 
tarian thought  which  marks  the  doxology  of  chapter  i.. 


iii.i4-i8.]      THE   COMPREHENSION  OF  CHRIST.  189 

and  other  leading  passages  in  this  epistle.*  The 
Father,  the  Spirit,  and  the  Christ  are  unitedly  the 
object  of  the  apostle's  devout  supplication. 

As  in  the  previous  clause,  the  verb  of  verse  17  bears 
emphasis  and  conveys  the  point  of  St  Paul's  entreaty  ; 
he  asks  that  ''  the  Christ  may  take  up  His  abode, — may 
settle  in  your  hearts."  The  word  signifies  to  set  up  one's 
house  or  make  one's  home  in  a  place,  by  way  of  contrast 
with  a  temporary  and  uncertain  sojourn  (comp.  ii.  19). 
The  same  verb  in  Colossians  ii.  9  asserts  that  in  Christ 
"  dwells  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead " ;  and  in 
Colossians  i.  19  it  declares,  used  in  the  same  tense  as 
here,  how  it  was  God's  "  pleasure  that  all  the  fulness 
should  make  its  dzvelling  in  Him  "  now  raised  from  the 
dead,  who  had  emptied  and  humbled  Himself  to  fulfil 
the  purpose  of  the  Father's  love.  So  it  is  desired  that 
Christ  should  take  His  seat  within  us.  He  is  never 
again  to  stand  at  the  door  and  knock,  nor  to  have  a 
doubtful  and  disputed  footing  in  the  house.  Let  the 
Master  come  in,  and  claim  His  own.  Let  Him  become 
the  heart's  fixed  tenant  and  full  occupier.  Let  Him,  if 
He  will  thus  condescend,  make  Himself  at  home  within 
us  and  there  rest  in  His  love.  For  He  promised  :  "  If 
any  man  love  me,  my  Father  will  love  him  ;  and  we  will 
come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him." 

And  "  the  Christ,"  not  Christ  alone.  Why  does  the 
apostle  say  this?  There  is  a  reason  for  the  definite 
article,  as  we  have  found  elsewhere.t  The  apostle  is 
asking  for  his  Asian  brethren  something  beyond  that 
possession  of  Christ  which  belongs  to  every  true  Chris- 
tian,— more  even  than  the  permanence  and  certainty  of 
this  indwelling  indicated  by  the  verb.     "The  Christ" 

*  See  ch.  i.  17,  ii.  18,  22,  and  especially  ch.  iv.  4-6, 
t  See  pp.  47,  83,  169, 


I90  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

is  Christ  in  the  significance  of  His  name.  It  is  Christ 
not  only  possessed,  but  understood, — Christ  reaHzed 
in  the  import  of  His  work,  in  the  light  of  His  relation- 
ship to  the  Father  and  the  Spirit,  and  to  men.  It  is 
the  Christ  of  the  Church  and  the  ages — known  and 
accepted  for  all  this — that  St  Paul  would  fain  have 
dwelling  in  the  heart  of  each  of  his  Gentile  disciples. 
He  is  endeavouring  to  raise  them  to  an  adequate  com- 
prehension of  the  greatness  of  the  Redeemer's  person 
and  offices  ;  he  longs  to  have  their  minds  possessed 
by  his  own  views  of  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord. 

The  hearty  in  the  language  of  the  Bible,  never  denotes 
the  emotional  nature  by  itself.  The  antithesis  of  "  heart 
and  head,"  the  divorce  of  feeling  and  understanding  in 
our  modern  speech  is  foreign  to  Scripture.  The  heart 
is  our  interior,  conscious  self — thought,  feeling,  will  in 
their  personal  unity.  It  needs  the  whole  Christ  to  fill 
and  rule  the  whole  heart, — a  Christ  who  is  the  Lord  of 
the  intellect,  the  Light  of  the  reason,  no  less  than  the 
Master  of  the  feelings  and  desires. 

The  difference  in  significance  between  "  Christ "  or 
"  Christ  Jesus  "  and  "  the  Christ "  in  such  a  sentence 
as  this,  is  not  unlike  the  difference  between  "Queen 
Victoria"  and  "  the  Queen."  The  latter  phrase  brings 
Her  Majesty  before  us  in  the  grandeur  and  splendour 
of  her  Queenship.  We  think  of  her  vast  dominion,  of 
her  line  of  royal  and  famous  ancestry,  of  her  beneficent 
and  memorable  reign.  So,  to  know  the  Christ  is  to 
apprehend  Him  in  the  height  of  His  Godhead,  in  the 
breadth  of  His  humanity,  in  the  plenitude  of  His  nature 
and  His  powers.  And  this  is  the  object  to  which  the 
teaching  and  the  prayers  of  St  Paul  for  the  Churches 
at  the  present  time  are  directed.  Understanding  in 
this  larger  sense  the  indwelling  of  the  Christ  for  which 


iii.  14-18.]      THE   COMPREHENSION  OF  CHRIST. 


he  prays,  we  see  how  naturally  his  supplication 
expands  into  the  '^  height  and  depth  "  of  the  ensuing 
verse. 

But  however  large  the  mental  conception  of  Christ 
that  St  Paul  desires  to  impart  to  us,  it  is  to  be  grasped 
"through  faith."  All  real  understanding  and  appro- 
priation of  Christ,  the  simplest  and  the  most  advanced, 
come  by  this  channel, — through  the  faith  of  the  heart 
in  which  knowledge,  will  and  feeling  blend  in  that  one 
act  of  trustful  apprehension  of  the  truth  concerning 
Jesus  Christ  by  which  the  soul  commits  itself  to 
Him. 

How  much  is  contained  in  this  petition  of  the  apostle 
that  we  need  to  ask  for  ourselves.*  Christ  Jesus 
dwells  now  as  then  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  love  Him. 
But  how  little  do  we  know  our  heavenly  Guest !  how 
poor  a  Christ  is  ours,  compared  to  the  Christ  of  Paul's 
experience  !  how  slight  and  empty  a  word  is  His  name 
to  multitudes  of  those  who  bear  it !  If  men  have  once 
attained  a  sense  of  His  salvation,  and  are  satisfied  of 
their  interest  in  His  atonement  and  their  right  to  hope 
for  eternal  Hfe  through  Him,  their  minds  are  at  rest. 
They  have  accepted  Christ  and  received  what  He  has 
to  give  them  ;  they  turn  their  attention  to  other  things. 
They  do  not  love  Christ  enough  to  study  Him.  They 
have  other  mental  interests, — scientific,  literary,  political 
or  industrial;  but  the  knowledge  of  Christ  has  no 
intellectual  attraction  for  them.  With  St  Paul's 
passionate  ardour,  the  ceaseless  craving  of  his  mind 
to  "know  Him,"  these  complacent  believers  have  no 
sympathy  whatever.  This,  they  think,  belongs  only 
to  a  few,  to  men  of  metaphysical  bias  or  of  religious 
genius  like  the  great  apostle.  Theology  is  regarded  as 
a  subject  for  specialists.     The  laity,  with  a  lamentable 


192  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

and  disastrous  neglect,  leave  the  study  of  Christian 
doctrine  to  the  ministry.  The  Christ  cannot  take  His 
due  place  in  His  people's  heart,  He  will  not  reveal  to 
them  the  \yealth  of  His  glory,  while  they  know  so  little 
and  care  to  know  so  little  of  Him.  How  many  can  be 
found,  outside  the  ranks  of  the  ordained,  that  make 
a  sacrifice  of  other  favourite  pursuits  to  meditate  on 
Christ  ?  what  prosperous  merchant,  what  active  man 
of  affairs  is  there  who  will  spare  an  hour  each  day 
from  his  other  gains  "for  the  excellency  of  the  know- 
ledge of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord  "  ? — ^'  If  at  the  present 
time  the  religious  life  of  the  Church  is  languid,  and 
if  in  its  enterprises  there  is  little  of  audacity  and 
vehemence,  a  partial  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
that  decline  of  intellectual  interest  in  the  contents  of 
the  Christian  Faith  which  has  characterized  the  last 
hundred  or  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  our  history."* 
It  is  a  knowledge  that  when  pursued  grows  upon  the 
mind  without  limit.  St  Paul,  who  knew  so  much,  for 
that  reason  felt  that  all  he  had  attained  was  but  in  the 
bud  and  beginning.  "  The  Christ  "  is  a  subject  infinite 
as  nature,  large  and  wide  as  history.  With  our  enlarged 
apprehension  of  Him,  the  heart  enlarges  in  capacity 
and  moral  power.  Not  unfrequently,  the  study  of 
Christ  in  Scripture  and  experience  gives  to  unlettered 
men,  to  men  whose  mind  before  their  conversion  was 
dull  and  uninformed,  an  intellectual  quality,  a  power  of 
discernment  and  apprehension  that  trained  scholars 
might  envy.  By  such  thoughtful,  constant  fellowship 
with  Him  the  vigour  of  spirit  and  courage  in  afQiction 


*  Lectures  on  Ephesiaiis,  pp.  235-8.  No  one  who  has  read  Dr. 
R.  W.  Dale's  noble  Lectures  on  this  epistle,  can  write  upon  the  same 
subject  without  being  deeply  in  his  debt, 


i.  I4-I8.]      THE   COMPREHENSION  OF  CHRIST.  193 


are  sustained,  that  the  apostle   first   asked    from  God 
on  behalf  of  his  anxious  Gentile  friends. 

III.  The  prayers  now  offered  might  suffice,  if  St  Paul 
were  concerned  only  for  the  individual  needs  of  those 
to  whom  he  writes  and  their  personal  advancement  in 
the  new  Hfe.  But  it  is  otherwise.  The  Church  fills  his 
mind.  Its  lofty  claims  at  every  turn  he  has  pressed 
on  our  attention.  This  is  God's  holy  temple  and  the 
habitation  of  His  Spirit ;  it  is  the  body  in  which  Christ 
dwells,  the  bride  that  He  has  chosen.  The  Church  is 
the  object  that  draws  the  eyes  of  heaven  ;  through  it 
the  angeUc  powers  are  learning  undreamed-of  lessons 
of  God's  wisdom.  Round  this  centre  the  apostle's 
intercession  must  needs  revolve.  When  he  asks  for 
his  readers  added  strength  of  heart  and  a  richer  fellow- 
ship with  Christ,  it  is  in  order  that  they  may  be  the 
better  able  to  enter  into  the  Church's  life  and  to 
apprehend  God's  great  designs  for  mankind. 

This  object  so  much  absorbs  the  writer's  thoughts 
and  has  been  so  constantly  in  view  from  the  outset, 
that  it  does  not  occur  to  him,  in  verse  1 8,  to  say  pre- 
cisely what  that  is  whose  ''breadth  and  length  and 
height  and  depth "  the  readers  are  to  measure.  The 
vast  building  stands  before  us  and  needs  not  to  be 
named ;  we  have  only  not  to  look  away  from  it,  not  to 
forget  what  we  have  been  reading  all  this  time.  It 
is  God's  plan  for  the  world  in  Christ)  it  is  the  purpose 
of  the  ages  realized  in  the  building  of  His  Church. 
This  conception  was  so  impressive  to  the  original 
readers  and  has  held  their  attention  so  closely  since 
the  apostle  unfolded  it  in  the  course  of  the  second 
chapter,  that  they  would  have  no  difficulty  in  supply- 
ing the  ellipsis  which  has  given  so  much  trouble  to  the 
commentators  since. 

13 


[94  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


If  we  are  asked  to  interpret  the  four  several 
magnitudes  that  are  assigned  to  this  building  of  God, 
we  may  say  with  Hofmann  *  :  ^'  It  stretches  wide 
over  all  the  world  of  the  nations,  east  and  west.  In 
its  length,  it  reaches  through  all  time  unto  the  end 
of  things.  In  depth,  it  penetrates  to  the  region  where 
the  faithful  sleep  in  death  [comp.  iv.  9].  And  it  rises 
to  heaven's  height,  where  Christ  lives."  In  the  like 
strain  Bernardine  a  Piconio,  most  genial  and  spiritual 
of  Romanist  interpreters  :  ''  Wide  as  the  furthest  limits 
of  the  inhabited  world,  long  as  the  ages  of  eternity 
through  which  God's  love  to  His  people  will  endure, 
deep  as  the  abyss  of  misery  and  ruin  from  which  He  has 
raised  us,  high  as  the  throne  of  Christ  in  the  heavens 
where  He  has  placed  us."  Such  is  the  commonwealth 
to  which  we  belong,  such  the  dimensions  of  this  city 
of  God  built  on  the  foundation  of  the  apostles, — 
''that  lieth  four-square." 

Do  we  not  need  to  be  strong — to  ''  gain  full  strength," 
as  the  apostle  prays,  in  order  to  grasp  in  its  substance 
and  import  this  immense  revelation  and  to  handle  it 
with  practical  effect  ?  Narrowness  is  feebleness.  The 
greatness  of  the  Church,  as  God  designed  it,  matches 
the  greatness  of  the  Christ  Himself.  It  needs  a  firm 
spiritual  faith,  a  far-seeing  intelligence,  and  a  charity 
broad  as  the  love  of  Christ  to  comprehend  this  mystery. 
From  many  believing  eyes  it  is  still  hidden.  Alas 
for  our  cold  hearts,  our  weak  and  partial  judgements ! 
alas  for  the  materialism  that  infects  our  Church  theories, 
and  that  limits  God's  free  grace  and  the  sovereign 
action  of  His  Spirit  to  visible  channels  and  ministra- 

*  Der  Brief  Pajili  an  die  Epheser,  p.  138.  Hofmann  is  one  of  those 
writers  from  whom  one  constantly  learns,  although  one  must  as  often 
differ  from  him  as  agree  with  him. 


14-18.]      THE  COMPREHENSION  OF  CHRIST.  195 


tions  -  wrought  by  hand."  Those  who  call  themselves 
Churchmen  and  Catholics  contradict  the  titles  they 
boast  when  they  bar  out  their  loyal  Christian  brethren 
from  the  covenant  rights  of  faith,  when  they  deny 
churchly  standing  to  communities  with  a  love  to  Christ 
as  warm  and  fruitful  in  good  works,  a  gospel  as  pure 
and  saving,  a  discipline  at  least  as  faithful  as  their  own. 
Who  are  we  that  we  dare  to  forbid  those  who  are 
domg  mighty  works  in  the  name  of  Christ,  because 
they  follow  not  with  us  ?  When  we  are  fain  to  pull 
down  every  building  of  God  that  does  not  square  with 
our  own  ecclesiastical  plans,  we  do  not  apprehend 
"  what  is  the  breadth  !  " 

We  draw  close  about  us  the  walls  of  Christ's  wide 
house,   as    if  to   confine  Him  in  our   single   chamber. 
We  call  our  particular  communion  ^'  the  Church  "  and 
the  rest  "the  sects";  and  disfranchise,  so  far  as  our 
word  and  judgement  go,  a  multitude  of  Christ's  free- 
men and   God's  elect,  our  fellow-citizens  in  the  New 
Jerusalem— saints,  some  of  them,  whose  feet  we  well 
might  deem  ourselves  unworthy  to  wash.     A  Church 
theory  that  leads  to  such  results  as  these,  that  condemns 
Nonconformists  to  be  strangers  in  the  House  of  God 
IS  self-condemned.     It  will  perish  of  its  own  chillness 
and  formahsm.     Happily,  many  of  those  who  hold  the 
doctrme  of  exclusive    Roman  or  Anglican,   or  Baptist 
or  Presbyterian  legitimacy,  are  in  feeling  and  practice 
more  catholic  than  in  their  creed. 

''  With  all  the  saints  "  the  Asian  Christians  are  called 
^  to  enter  into  St  Paul's  wider  view  of  God's  work  in 
the  world.  For  this  is  a  collective  idea,  to  be  shared 
by  many  minds  and  that  should  sway  all  Christian 
hearts  at  once.  It  is  the  collective  aim  of  Christianity 
that  St  Paul  wants  his  readers  to  understand,  its  mission 


[o6  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


to  save  humanity  and  to  reconstruct  the  world  for  a 
temple  of  God.  This  is  a  calling  for  all  the  saints ;  but 
only  for  saints, — for  men  devoted  to  God  and  renewed 
by  His  Spirit.  It  was  ^'  revealed  to  His  holy  apostles 
and  prophets  "  (ver.  5)  ;  and  it  needs  men  of  the  same 
quality  for  its  bearers  and  interpreters. 

But  the  first  condition  for  this  largeness  of  sympathy 
and  aim  is  that  stated  at  the  beginning  of  the  verse, 
thrown  forward  there  with  an  emphasis  that  almost 
does  violence  to  grammar :  *'  in  love  being  fast  rooted 
and  grounded."  Where  Christ  dwells  abidingly  in  the 
heart,  love  enters  with  Him  and  becomes  the  ground 
of  our  nature,  the  basis  on  which  our  thought  and 
action  rest,  the  soil  in  which  our  purposes  grow.  Love 
is  the  mark  of  the  true  Broad  Churchman  in  all 
Churches,  the  man  to  whom  Christ  is  all  things  and 
in  all,  and  who,  wherever  he  sees  a  Christhke  man, 
loves  him  and  counts  him  a  brother. 

When  such  love  to  Christ  fills  all  our  hearts  and 
penetrates  to  their  depths,  we  shall  have  strength  to 
shake  off  our  prejudices,  strength  to  master  our  intellec- 
tual difficulties  and  limitations.  We  shall  have  the 
courage  to  adopt  Christ's  simple  rule  of  fellowship  : 
"  Whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in 
heaven,  he  is  my  brother,  and  sister,  and  mother." 


CHAPTER   XV. 

KNOWING   THE   UNKNOWABLE. 

"  [I  pray]  that  ye,  being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  may  be  strong 
to  comprehend  with  all  the  saints  what  is  the  breadth  and  length  and 
height  and  depth,  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  know- 
ledge, that  ye  may  be  filled  unto  all  the  fulness  of  God." — Eph.  iii.  17-19. 

WE  were  compelled  to  pause  before  reaching  the 
end  of  the  apostle's  comprehensive  prayer. 
But  we  must  not  let  slip  the  thread  of  its  connexion. 
Verse  19  is  the  necessary  sequel  and  counterpart  of 
verse  18.  The  catholic  love  which  embraces  ''all  the 
saints "  and  "  comprehends "  in  its  wide  dimensions 
the  extent  of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom,  admits  us  to 
a  deeper  knowledge  of  Christ's  own  love.  The  breadth 
and  length,  the  height  and  depth  of  the  work  of  Christ 
in  men  and  the  ages  give  us  a  worthier  conception 
of  the  love  that  inspired  and  sustains  it.  "  In  the 
Church"  at  once  "and  in  Christ  Jesus"  God's  glory 
is  revealed.  Our  Church  views  react  upon  our  views 
of  Christ  and  our  sense  of  His  love.  Bigotry  and 
exclusiveness  towards  His  brethren  chill  the  heart 
towards  Himself.  Our  sectarianism  stints  and  narrows 
our  apprehensions  of  the  Divine  grace. 

I.  St  Paul  prays  that  we  may  "  know  [not  com- 
prehend'] the   love   of  Christ  "  ;  for  it   ''  passes  know- 

197 


198  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

ledge."  Amongst  the  Greek  words  denoting  mental 
activity,  that  here  employed  signifies  knowledge  in 
the  acquisition  rather  than  possession — getting  to  know. 
Hence  it  is  rightly,  and  often  used  of  things  Divine 
that  '*  we  know  in  part,"  our  knowledge  of  which  falls 
short  of  the  reahty  while  it  is  growing  up  to  it.  Thus 
understood,  the  contradiction  of  the  apostle's  wish 
disappears.  We  know  the  unknowable,  just  as  we 
"  clearly  see  the  invisible  things  of  God  "  (Rom.  i.  20). 
The  idea  is  conveyed  of  an  'object  that  invites  our 
observation  and  pursuit,  but  which  at  every  step  out- 
reaches  apprehension,  each  discovery  revealing  depths 
within  it  unperceived  before.  Such  was  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  to  the  soul  of  St  Paul.  To  the  Philippians 
the  aged  apostle  writes  :  "  I  do  not  reckon  myself  to 
have  apprehended  Him.  I  am  in  pursuit  !  I  forget  the 
past;  I  press  on  eagerly  to  the  goal.  I  have  but  one 
object  in  view  and  sacrifice  everything  for  it, — that  I 
may  win  Christ!" 

In  all  the  mystery  of  Christ,  there  is  nothing  more 
wonderful  and  past  finding  out  than  His  love.  For 
nigh  thirty  years  Paul  has  been  living  in  daily  fellow- 
ship with  the  love  of  Christ,  his  heart  full  of  it  and 
all  the  powers  of  his  mind  bent  upon  its  comprehen- 
sion :  he  cannot  understand  it  yet !  At  this  moment 
it  amazes  him  more  than  ever. 

Great  as  the  Christian  community  is,  and  large  as 
the  place  and  part  assigned  to  it  by  this  epistle,  that 
is  still  finite  and  a  creation  of  time.  The  apostle's 
doctrine  of  the  Church  is  not  beyond  the  comprehen- 
sion of  a  mind  sufficiently  loving  and  enlightened. 
But  though  we  had  followed  him  so  far  and  had  well 
and  truly  apprehended  the  mystery  he  has  revealed 
to    us,    the    love    of   Christ    is    still   beyond    uf^.     Our 


iii.  17-21.]         KNOWING    THE    UNKNOWABLE.  199 

principles  of  judgement  and  standards  of  comparison 
fail  us  when  applied  to  this  subject.  Human  love  has 
in  many  instances  displayed  heroic  qualities  ;  it  can 
rise  to  a  divine  height  of  purity  and  tenderness*  but 
its  noblest  sacrifices  will  not  bear  to  be  put  by  the  side 
of  the  cross  of  Christ.  No  picture  of  that  love  but 
shows  poor  and  dull  compared  with  the  reality  ;  no 
eloquence  lavished  upon  it  but  lowers  the  theme.  Our 
logical  framework  of  doctrine  fails  to  enclose  and  hold 
it ;  the  love  of  Christ  defies  analysis  and  escapes 
from  all  our  definitions.  Those  who  know  the  world 
best,  who  have  ranged  through  history  and  philosophy 
and  the  life  of  living  men  and  have  measured  most 
generously  the  possibilities  of  human  nature,  are  filled 
with  a  wondering  reverence  when  they  come  to  know 
the  love  of  Christ.  "  Never  man  spake  hke  this  man," 
said  one ;  but  verily  never  man  loved  like  Jesus  Christ. 
He  expects  to  be  loved  more  than  father  or  mother ; 
for  His  love  surpasses  theirs.  We  cannot  describe 
His  love,  nor  delineate  its  features  as  Paul  saw  them, 
when  he  wrote  these  lines.  Go  to  the  Gospels,  and 
behold  it  as  it  lived  and  wrought  for  men.  Stand  and 
watch  at  the  cross.  Then  if  the  eyes  of  your  heart 
are  open,  you  will  see  the  great  sight — the  love  that 
passeth  knowledge. 

When,  turning  from  Christ  Himself  in  His  own 
person  and  presence,  before  whom  praise  is  speechless, 
we  contemplate  the  manifestations  of  His  love  to 
mankind;  when  we  consider  that  its  fountain  lies  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Eternal ;  when  we  trace  its  footsteps 
prepared  from  the  world's  foundation,  and  perceive  it 
choosing  a  people  for  its  own  and  making  its  promises 
and  raising  up  its  heralds  and  forerunners ;  when  at 
last  it  can  hide  and  refrain  itself  no  longer,  but  comes 


THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


forth  incarnate  with  lowly  heart  to  take  our  infirmities 
and  carry  our  diseases — yea,  to  put  away  our  sin  by 
the  sacrifice  of  itself ;  when  we  behold  that  same  Love 
which  the  hands  of  men  had  slain,  setting  up  its  cross 
for  the  sign  of  its  covenant  of  peace  with  mankind, 
and  enthroned  in  the  majesty  of  heaven  waiting  even 
as  a  bridegroom  joyously  for  the  time  when  its 
ransomed  shall  be  brought  home,  redeemed  from 
iniquity  and  gathered  unto  itself  from  all  the  kindreds 
of  the  earth ;  and  when  we  see  how  this  mystery  of 
love,  in  its  sufferings  and  glories  and  its  deep-laid 
plans  for  all  the  creatures,  engages  the  ardent  study 
and  sympathy  of  the  heavenly  principalities, — in  view 
of  these  things,  who  can  but  feel  himself  unworthy 
to  know  the  love  of  Christ  or  to  speak  one  word  on 
its  behalf?  Are  we  not  ready  to  say  like  Peter, 
"  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  0  Lord  "  ? 

This  is  a  revelation  that  searches  every  man's  soul 
who  looks  into  it.  What  is  there  so  confounding  to 
our  reason  and  our  human  self-complacency  as  the 
discovery  :  "  He  loved  me  ;  He  gave  Himself  up  for 
me  " — that  He  should  do  it,  and  should  need  to  do  it ! 
It  was  this  that  went  to  Saul's  heart,  that  gave  the 
mortal  blow  to  the  Jewish  pride  in  him,  strong  as  it 
was  with  the  growth  of  centuries.  The  bearer  of  this 
grace  and  the  ambassador  of  Christ's  love  to  the 
Gentiles,  he  feels  himself  to  be  "  less  than  the  least 
of  all  the  saints."  We  carry  in  our  hands  to  show  to 
men  a  heavenly  light,  which  throws  our  own  unloveli- 
ness  into  dark  relief. 

IL  The  love  of  Christ  connects  together,  in  the 
apostle's  thoughts,  <M^  greatness  of  the  Church  and  the 
fulness  of  God.  The  two  former  conceptions — Christ's 
love  and  the  Church's  greatness — go  together  in  our 


iii.  17-21.]         KNOWING   THE   UNKNOWABLE. 


minds ;    knowing  them,   we  are    led    onwards    to    the 
realization  of  the  last. 

The  "fulness  \_pleroma]  of  God,"  and  the  ''filling" 
(or  "completing")  of  believers  in  Christ  are  ideas 
characteristic  of  this  group  of  epistles.  The  first  of 
these  expressions  we  have  discussed  already  in  its 
connexion  with  Christ,  in  chapter  i.  23  ;  we  shall  meet 
with  it  again  as  "  the  fulness  of  Christ "  in  chapter  iv. 
13.  The  phrase  before  us  is,  in  substance,  identical 
with  that  of  the  latter  text.  Christ  contains  the  Divine 
plenitude ;  He  embodies  it  in  His  person,  and  conveys 
it  to  the  world  by  His  redemption.  St  Paul  desires 
for  the  Asian  Christians  that  they  may  receive  it ;  it  is 
the  ultimate  mark  of  his  prayer.  He  wishes  them  to 
gain  the  total  sum  of  all  that  God  communicates  to 
men.  He  would  have  them  "  filled  " — their  nature  made 
complete  both  in  its  individual  and  social  relations, 
their  powers  of  mind  and  heart  brought  into  full 
exercise,  their  spiritual  capacities  developed  and  re- 
plenished— "filled  unto  all  the  plenitude  of  God." 

This  is  no  humanistic  or  humanitarian  ideal.  The 
mark  of  Christian  completeness  is  on  a  different  and 
higher  plane  than  any  that  is  set  up  by  culture.  The 
ideal  Christian  is  a  greater  man  than  the  ideal  citizen 
or  artist  or  philosopher  :  he  may  include  within  himself 
any  or  all  of  these  characters,  but  he  transcends  them. 
He  may  conform  to  none  of  these  types,  and  yet  be  a 
perfect  man  in  Christ  Jesus.  Our  race  cannot  rest  in 
any  perfection  that  stops  short  of  "  the  fulness  of  God." 
When  we  have  received  all  that  God  has  to  give  in 
Christ,  when  the  community  of  men  is  once  more  a 
family  of  God  and  the  Father's  will  is  done  on  earth 
as  in  heaven,  then  and  not  before  will  our  life  be 
complete.      That   is  the   goal   of  humanity ;  and    the 


202  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

civilization  that  does  not  lead  to  it  is  a  wandering  from 
the  way.  ''You  are  complete  in  Christ,"  says  the 
apostle.  The  progress  of  the  ages  since  confirms  the 
saying. 

The  apostle  prays  that  his  readers  may  know  the 
love  of  Christ.  This  is  a  part  of  the  Divine  plenitude ; 
nor  is  there  anything  in  it  deeper.  But  there  is  more 
to  know.  When  he  asks  for  ''all  the  fulness/'  he 
thinks  of  other  elements  of  revelation  in  which  we  are 
to  participate.  God's  wisdom,  His  truth.  His  righteous- 
ness, along  with  His  love  in  its  manifold  forms, — all 
the  qualities  that,  in  one  word,  go  to  make  up  His 
holiness,  are  communicable  and  belong  to  the  image 
stamped  by  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  nature  of  God's 
children.  "  Ye  shall  be  holy,  for  I  am  holy  "  is  God's 
standing  command  to  His  sons.  So  Jesus  bids  His 
disciples,  "Be  perfect,  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect."  St  Paul's  prayer  ''is  but  another  way  of 
expressing  the  continuous  aspiration  and  effort  after 
holiness  which  is  enjoined  in  our  Lord's  precept" 
(Lightfoot). 

While  the  hohness  of  God  gathers  up  into  one 
stream  of  white  radiance  the  revelation  of  His  character, 
"the  fulness  of  God"  spreads  it  abroad  in  its  many- 
coloured  richness  and  variety.  The  term  accords  with 
the  affluence  of  thought  that  marks  this  supplication. 
The  might  of  the  Spirit  that  strengthens  weak  human 
hearts,  the  greatness  of  the  Christ  who  is  the  guest  of 
our  faith.  His  wide-spreading  kingdom  and  the  vast 
interests  it  embraces  and  His  own  love  surpassing  all, 
— these  objects  of  the  soul's  desire  issue  from  the 
fulness  of  God ;  and  they  lead  us  in  pursuing  them, 
like  streams  pouring  into  the  ocean,  back  to  the  eternal 
Godhead.      The    mediatorial    kingdom    has    its    end : 


ii.  17-21.]         KNOWING   THE   UNKNOWABLE.  203 


Christ,  when  He  has  ''  put  down  all  rule  and  authority," 
will  at  last  ''yield  it  up  to  His  God  and  Father";  and 
"the  Son  Himself  will  be  subjected  to  Ilim  that  put 
all  things  under  Him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all" 
(i  Cor.  XV.  24-28).  This  is  the  crown  of  the  Redeemer's 
mission,  the  end  which  His  love  to  the  Father  seeks. 
But  when  that  end  is  reached,  and  the  soul  with  im- 
mediate vision  beholds  the  Father's  glory,  the  Plenitude 
will  be  still  new  and  unexhausted ;  the  soul  will  then 
begin  its  deepest  lessons  in  the  knowledge  of  God 
which  is  life  eternal. 

St  Paul  is  conscious  of  the  extreme  boldness  of 
the  prayer  he  has  just  uttered.  But  he  protests  that, 
instead  of  going  beyond  God's  purposes,  it  falls  short 
of  them.  This  assurance  rises,  in  verses  20  and  21, 
into  a  rapture  of  praise.  It  is  a  cry  of  exultation,  a 
true  song  of  triumph,  that  breaks  from  the  apostle's 
lips  : — 

*'  Now  unto  Him  that  is  able  to  do  above  all  things,— 
Yea,  far  exceedingly  beyond  what  we  ask  or  think, — 
According  to  the  power  that  worketh  in  us  : 
To  Him  be  glory  in  the  Church  and  in  Christ  Jesus, 
Unto  all  generations  of  the  age  of  the  ages. — Amen  !  " 

(vv.  20,  21). 

Praise  soars  higher  than  prayer.  When  St  Paul 
has  reached  in  supplication  the  summit  of  his  desires, 
he  sees  the  plenitude  of  God's  gifts  still  by  a  whole 
heaven  outreaching  him.  But  it  is  only  from  these 
mountain-tops  hardly  won  in  the  exercise  of  prayer, 
in  their  still  air  and  tranquil  light,  that  the  boundless 
realms  of  promise  are  visible.  God's  giving  surpasses 
immeasurably  our  thought  and  askin-g  ;  but  there  must 
be  the  asking  and  the  thinking  for  it  to  surpass.  He 
puts  always  more  into  our  hand  and  better  things  than 


204  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS, 


we  expected — when  the  expectant  hand  is  reached  out 
to  Him. 

Man's  desires  will  never  overtake  God's  bounty. 
Hearing  the  prayer  just  offered,  unbelief  will  say : 
**You  have  asked  too  much.  It  is  preposterous  to 
expect  that  raw  Gentile  converts,  scarcely  raised  above 
their  heathen  debasement,  should  enter  into  these 
exalted  notions  of  yours  about  Christ  and  the  Church 
and  should  be  filled  with  the  fulness  of  God  !  Prayer 
must  be  rational  and  within  the  bounds  of  possibility, 
offered  'with  the  understanding'  as  well  as  'with  the 
spirit,'  or  it  becomes  mere  extravagance." — The  apostle 
gives  a  twofold  answer  to  this  kind  of  scepticism.  He 
appeals  to  the  Divine  omnipotence.  "  With  men,"  you 
say,  "  this  is  impossible."  Humanly  speaking,  St 
Paul's  Gentile  disciples  were  incapable  of  any  high 
spiritual  culture ;  they  were  unpromising  material,  with 
"  not  many  wise  or  many  noble  "  amongst  them,  some 
of  them  before  their  conversion  stained  with  infamous 
vices.  Who  is  to  make  saints  and  godlike  men  out  of 
such  human  refuse  as  this  !  But  "  with  God,"  as  Jesus 
said,  "  all  things  are  possible."  Fa'X  tirbis,  lux  orbis : 
"  the  scum  of  the  city  is  made  the  light  of  the  world  !  " 
The  force  at  work  upon  the  minds  of  these  degraded 
pagans — slaves,  thieves,  prostitutes,  as  some  of  them 
had  been — is  the  love  of  Christ ;  it  is  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  the  might  of  the  strength  which  raises 
the  dead  to  life  eternal. 

Let  us  therefore  praise  Him  "who  is  able  to  do 
beyond  all  things " — beyond  the  best  that  His  best 
servants  have  wished  and  striven  for.  Had  men  ever 
asked  or  thought  of  such  a  gift  to  the  world  as  Jesus 
Christ  ?  Had  the  prophets  foreseen  one  tenth  part 
of  His  greatness  ?      In    their  boldest  dreams  did    the 


iii.  17-21.]         KNOWING   THE   UNKNOWABLE.  205 


disciples  anticipate  the  wonders  of  the  day  of  Pentecost 
and  of  the  later  miracles  of  grace  accomplished  by 
their  preaching  ?  How  far  exceedingly  had  these 
things  already  surpassed  the  utmost  that  the  Church 
asked  or  thought. 

St  Paul's  reliance  is  not  upon  the  *' ability"  alone, 
upon  the  abstract  omnipotence  of  God.  The  force 
upon  which  he  counts  is  lodged  in  the  Church,  and  is 
in  visible  and  constant  operation.  "According  to  the 
power  that  workctJi  in  tts^'  he  expects  these  vast  results 
to  be  achieved.  This  power  is  the  same  as  that  he 
invoked  in  verse  16, — the  might  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in 
the  inward  man.  It  is  the  spring  of  courage  and  joy, 
the  source  of  religious  intelligence  (i.  17,  18)  and 
personal  holiness,  the  very  power  that  raised  the  dead 
body  of  Jesus  to  life,  as  it  will  raise  hereafter  all  the 
holy  dead  to  share  His  immortality  (Rom.  viii.  11). 
St  Paul  was  conscious  at  this  time  in  a  remarkable 
degree  of  the  supernatural  energy  working  within  his 
own  mind.  It  is  of  this  that  he  speaks  to  the  Colossians, 
in  language  very  similar  to  that  of  our  text,  when  he 
says :  "  I  toil  hard,  striving  according  to  His  energy 
that  works  in  me  in  power."  As  he  labours  for  the 
Church  in  writing  that  epistle,  he  is  sensible  of  another 
Power  acting  within  his  spirit  and  distinguished  from 
it  by  his  consciousness,  which  tasks  his  faculties  to  the 
utmost  to  follow  its  dictates  and  express  its  meaning. 

The  presence  of  this  mysterious  power  of  the  Spirit 
St  Paul  constantly  felt  when  engaged  in  prayer, — ''The 
Spirit  helpeth  our  infirmities " ;  He  "  makes  inter- 
cession for  us  with  groanings  that  cannot  be  uttered " 
(Rom.  viii.  26,  27).  On  this  point  the  experience  of 
earnest  Christian  believers  in  all  ages  confirms  that 
of  St  Paul.     The  sublime  prayer  to  which  he  has  just 


2o6  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

given  utterance,  is  not  his  own.  There  is  more  in  it 
than  the  mere  Paul,  a  weak  man,  would  have  dared  to 
ask  or  think.  He  who  inspires  the  prayer  will  fulfil  it. 
The  Searcher  of  hearts  knows  better  than  the  man 
who  conceived  it,  infinitely  better  than  we  who  are 
trying  for  our  own  help  to  interpret  it,  all  that  this 
intercession  means.  God  will  hear  the  pleading  of 
His  Spirit.  The  Power  that  prompts  our  prayers, 
and  the  Power  that  grants  their  answer  are  the  same. 
The  former  is  limited  in  its  action  by  human  infirmity  ; 
the  latter  knows  no  limit.  Its  only  measure  is  the 
fulness  of  God.  To  Him  who  works  in  us  all  good 
desires,  and  works  far  beyond  us  to  bring  our  good 
desires  to  good  effect,  be  the  glory  of  all  for  ever  ! 

In  such  measure,  then,  shall  glory  be  to  God  "in 
the  Church  and  in  Christ  Jesus."  We  see  how  the 
Church  takes  up  the  foreground  of  Paul's  horizon. 
This  epistle  has  taught  us  that  God  desires  far  more 
than  our  individual  salvation,  however  complete  that 
might  be.  Christ  came  not  to  save  men  only,  but 
mankind.  It  is  ''in  the  Church"  that  God's  consum- 
mate glory  will  be  seen.  No  man  in  his  fragmentary 
self-hood,  no  number  of  men  in  their  separate  capacity 
can  conceivably  attain  "unto  the  fulness  of  God." 
It  will  need  all  humanity  for  that, — to  reflect  the 
full-orbed  splendour  of  Divine  revelation.  Isolated 
and  divided  from  each  other,  we  render  to  God  a 
dimmed  and  partial  glory.  "  With  one  accord,  with 
one  mouth "  we  are  called  to  "  glorify  the  God  and 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  Wherefore  the 
apostle  bids  us  "  receive  one  another,  as  Christ  also 
received  us,  to  the  glory  of  God  "  (Rom.  xv.  6,  7). 

The  Church,  being  the  creation  of  God's  love  in 
Christ  and  the  receptacle  of  His  communicative  fulness, 


iii.  17-21.]         KNOWING    THE   UNKNOWABLE.  207 

is  the  vessel  formed  for  His  praise.  Her  worship  is 
a  daily  tribute  to  the  Divine  majesty  and  bounty.  The 
life  of  her  people  in  the  world,  her  witness  for  Christ 
and  warfare  against  sin,  her  ceaseless  ministries  to 
human  sorrow  and  need  proclaim  the  Divine  goodness, 
righteousness  and  truth.  From  the  heavenly  places 
where  she  dwells  with  Christ,  she  reflects  the  light  of 
God's  glory  and  makes  it  shine  into  the  depths  of  evil 
at  her  feet.  It  was  the  Church's  voice  that  St  John 
heard  in  heaven  as  "  the  voice  of  a  great  multitude, 
and  as  the  voice  of  many  waters,  and  as  the  voice  of 
mighty  thunders,  saying,  Hallelujah  :  for  the  Lord  our 
God,  the  Almighty  reigneth  !  "  Each  soul  new-born 
into  the  fellowship  of  faith  adds  another  note  to  make 
up  the  multitudinous  harmony  of  the  Church's  praise 
to  God. 

Nor  does  the  Church  by  herself  alone  render  this 
praise  and  honour  unto  God.  The  display  of  God's 
manifold  wisdom  in  His  dealings  with  mankind  is 
drawing  admiration,  as  St  Paul  believed,  from  the 
celestial  spheres  (ver.  lo).  The  story  of  earth's 
redemption  is  the  theme  of  endless  songs  in  heaven. 
All  creation  joins  in  concert  with  the  redeemed  from 
the  earth,  and  swells  the  chorus  of  their  triumph.  "  I 
heard,"  says  John  in  another  pl^ce,  *'  a  voice  of  many 
angels  round  about  the  throne,  and  the  living  creatures, 
and  the  elders,  saying  with  a  great  voice,  Worthy  is 
the  Lamb  that  hath  been  slain  !  And  every  created 
thing  which  is  in  the  heaven,  and  on  the  earth, 
and  under  the  earth,  and  on  the  sea,  and  all  things 
that  •  are  in  them,  heard  I  saying : 

Unto  Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb, 
Be  blessing  and  honour  and  glory  and  dominion — 

For  ever  and  ever    " 


2o8  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


But  the  Church  is  the  centre  of  this  tribute  of  the 
universe  to  God  and  to  His  Christ. 

77?^  Church  and  Christ  Jesus  are  wedded  in  this 
doxology,  even  as  they  were  in  the  foregoing  suppH- 
cation  (vv.  i8,  19).  In  the  Bride  and  the  Bridegroom, 
in  the  Redeemed  and  the  Redeemer,  in  the  many 
brethren  and  in  the  Firstborn  is  this  perfect  glory  to 
be  paid  to  God.  "  In  the  midst  of  the  congregation" 
Shrist  the  Son  of  man  sings  evermore  the  Father's 
praise  (Heb.  ii.  12).  No  glory  is  paid  to  God  by  men 
which  is  not  due  to  Him  ;  nor  does  He  render  to  the 
Father  any  tribute  in  which  His  people  are  without  a 
share.  ^'  The  glory  which  thou  hast  given  me  I  have 
given  them,"  said  Jesus  to  the  Father  praying  for  His 
Church,  ''that  they  may  be  one,  even  as  we  are  one" 
(John  xvii.  22).  Our  union  with  each  other  in  Christ 
is  perfected  by  our  union  with  Him  in  reaHzing  the 
Father's  glory,  in  receiving  and  manifesting  the  fulness 
of  God. 

The  duration  of  the  glory  to  be  paid  to  God  by  Christ 
and  His  Church  is  expressed  by  a  cumulative  phrase 
in  keeping  with  the  tenor  of  the  passage  to  which  it 
belongs  :  "  unto  all  generations  of  the  age  of  the  ages." 
It  reminds  us  of  ''  the  ages  to  come  "  through  which 
the  apostle  in  chapter  ii.  7  foresaw  that  God's  mercy 
to  his  own  age  would  be  celebrated.  It  carries  our 
thoughts  along  the  vista  of  the  future,  till  time  melts 
into  eternity.  When  the  apostle  desires  that  God's 
praise  may  resound  in  the  Church  "  unto  all  genera- 
tions ^'^  he  no  longer  supposes  that  the  mystery  of 
God  may  be  finished  speedily  as  men  count  years. 
The  history  of  mankind  stretches  before  his  gaze 
into  its  dim  futurity.  The  successive  "generations" 
gather  themselves  into    that  one    consummate  "  age " 


iii.  17-21.]         KNOWING    THE    UNKNOWABLE.  209 


of  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  grand  cycle  in  which  all 
^'the  ages"  are  contained.  With  its  completion  time 
itself  is  no  more.  Its  swelling  current,  laden  with 
the  tribute  of  all  the  worlds  and  all  their  histories, 
reaches  the  eternal  ocean. 

The  end  comes  :  God  is  all  in  all.  At  this  furthest 
horizon  of  thought,  Christ  and  His  own  are  seen 
together  rendering  to  God  unceasing  glory. 


THE  EXHORTATION. 
Chapter  iv.   i — vi.  20. 

ON  CHURCH  LIFE. 
Chapter  iv.  1-16. 


"  It  is  good  we  return  unto  the  ancient  bond  of  unity  in  the  Church 
of  God,  which  was  one  faithy  one  baptism,  and  not  one  hierarchy,  one 
discipline  ;  and  that  we  observe  the  league  of  Christians,  as  it  was 
penned  by  our  Saviour  Christ,  which  is  in  substance  of  doctrine  this  : 
He  that  is  not  with  us  is  against  us  ;  and  in  things  indifferent  and  but 
of  circumstance  this  :  He  that  is  not  against  us  is  with  us." — Lord 
Bacon  :  Certain  Considerations  touching  the  better  Pacification  and 
Edification  of  the  Church  of  England,  addressed  to  King  James  I. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

THE  FUNDAMENTAL    UNITIES. 

"  I  therefore,  the  prisoner  in  the  Lord,  beseech  you  to  walk  worthily 
of  the  calling  wherewith  ye  were  called,  with  all  lowliness  and  meek- 
ness, with  longsuffering,  forbearing  one   another  in  love  ;  giving  dili- 
gence to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace. 
"  There  is  one  body,  and  one  Spirit, 
Even  as  also  ye  were  called  in  one  hope  of  your  calling ; 
One  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism. 
One  God  and  Father  of  all. 
Who  is  over  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  all." 

Ei'ii.  iv.  1-6. 

THIS  Encyclical  of  St  Paul  to  the  Churches  of  Asia 
is  the  most  forinal  and  deliberate  of  his  writings 
since  the  great  epistle  to  the  Romans.  In  entering 
upon  its  hortatory  and  practical  part  we  are  reminded 
of  the  transition  from  doctrine  to  exhortation  in  that 
epistle.  Here  as  in  Romans  xi.,  xii.  the  apostle's 
theological  teaching,  brought  with  measured  steps  to 
its  conclusion,  has  been  followed  by  an  act  of  worship 
expressing  the  profound  and  holy  joy  which  fills  his 
spirit  as  he  views  the  purposes  of  God  thus  displayed 
in  the  gospel  and  the  Church.  In  this  exalted  mood, 
as  one  sitting  in  heavenly  places  with  Christ  Jesus, 
St  Paul  surveys  the  condition  of  his  readers  and 
addresses  himself  to  their  duties  and  necessities.  His 
homily,  like  his  argument,  is  inwoven  with  the  golden 


214  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

thread  of  devotion  ;  and  the  smooth  flow  of  the  epistle 
breaks  ever  and  again  into  the  music  of  thanksgiving. 

The  apostle  resumes  the  words  of  self-description 
dropped  in  chapter  iii.  I.  He  appeals  to  his  readers 
with  pathetic  dignity :  "  I  the  prisoner  in  the  Lord  "  ; 
and  the  expression  gathers  new  solemnity  from  that 
which  he  has  told  us  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  mystery 
and  grandeur  of  his  office.  He  is  "  the  prisoner  " — the 
one  whose  bonds  were  known  through  all  the  Churches 
and  manifest  even  in  the  imperial  palace  (Phil.  i. 
12-14).  It  was  '^in  the  Lord"  that  he  wore  this  heavy 
chain,  brought  upon  him  in  Christ's  service,  and  borne 
joyfully  for  His  people's  sake.  He  is  now  a  martyr 
apostle.  If  his  confinement  detained  him  from  his 
Gentile  flock,  at  least  it  should  add  sacred  force  to  the 
message  he  Was  able  to  convey.  The  tone  of  the 
apostle's  letters  at  this  time  shows  that  he  was  sensible 
of  the  increased  consideration  which  the  afflictions  of 
the  last  few  years  had  given  to  him  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Church.  He  is  thankful  for  this  influence,  and  makes 
good  use  of  it. 

His  first  and  main  appeal  to  the  Asian  brethren,  as 
we  should  expect  from  the  previous  tenor  of  the  letter, 
is  an  exhortation  to  unity.  It  is  an  obvious  conclusion 
from  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  that  he  has  taught 
them.  The  '*  oneness  of  the  Spirit "  which  they  must 
^*  earnestly  endeavour  to  preserve,"  is  the  unity  which 
their  possession  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  itself  implies. 
"Having  access  in  one  Spirit  to  the  Father,"  the  anti- 
pathetic Jewish  and  Gentile  factors  of  the  Church  are 
reconciled  ;  "  in  the  Spirit "  they  "  are  builded  together 
for  a  habitation  of  God"  (ii.  18-22).  This  unity 
when  St  Paul  wrote  was  an  actual  and  visible  fact, 
despite  the  violent  efforts  of  the  Judaizers  to  destroy  it. 


iv.  1-6.]  THE  FUNDAMENTAL    UNTTIES.  215 

The  ''  right  hands  of  fellowship  "  exchanged  between 
himself  and  James,  Peter,  and  John  at  the  conference 
of  Jerusalem  were  a  witness  thereto  (Gal.  ii.  7-10).  But 
it  was  a  union  that  needed  for  its  maintenance  the 
efforts  of  right-thinking  men  and  sons  of  peace  every- 
where. St  Paul  bids  all  who  read  his  letter  help  to 
keep  Christ's  peace  in  the  Churches. 

The  conditions  for  such  pursuing  and  preserving  of 
peace  in  the  fold  of  Christ  are  briefly  indicated  in  verses 
I  and  2.     There  must  be — 

(i)  A  due  sense  of  the  dignity  of  our  Christian  call- 
ing: "Walk  worthily,"  he  says,  "of  the  calling  where 
with  you  were  called."  This  exhortation,  of  course, 
includes  much  besides  in  its  scope  ;  it  is  the  preface  to 
all  the  exhortations  of  the  three  following  chapters,  the 
basis,  in  fact,  of  every  worthy  appeal  to  Christian  men  ; 
but  it  bears  in  the  first  instance,  and  pointedly,  upon 
Church  unity.  Levity  of  temper,  •  low  and  poor  con- 
ceptions of  religion  militate  against  the  catholic  spirit ; 
they  create  an  atmosphere  rife  with  causes  of  conten- 
tion. "  Whereas  there  is  among  you  jealousy  and 
strife,  are  ye  not  carnal  and  walk  as  men  ?  " 

(2)  Next  to  low-mindedness  amongst  the  foes  of 
unity  comes  ambition  :  "  Walk  with  all  lowliness  of 
mind  and  meekness,"  he  continues.  Between  the  low- 
minded  and  the  lowly-minded  there  is  a  total  differ- 
ence. The  man  of  lowly  mind  habitually  feels  his 
dependence  as  a  creature  and  his  unworthiness  as  a 
sinner  before  God.  This  spirit  nourishes  in  him  a 
wholesome  self-distrust,  and  watchfulness  over  his 
temper  and  motives. — The  7ncek  man  thinks  as  little  of 
his  |)ersonal  claims,  as  the  humble  man  of  his  personal 
merits.  He  is  willing  to  give  place  to  others  where 
higher  interests  will  not  suffer,  content  to  take  the  lowest 


2i6  THE   EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

room-  and  to  be  in  men's  eyes  of  no  account.  How 
many  seeds  of  strife  and  roots  of  bitterness  would  be 
destroyed,  if  this  mind  were  in  us  all.  Self-importance, 
the  love  of  office  and  power  and  the  craving  for  applause 
must  be  put  away,  if  we  are  to  recover  and  keep  the 
unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace. 

(3)  When  St  Paul  adds  '^  with  longsuifering,  for- 
bearing one  another  in  love,"  he  is  opposing  a  cause 
of  division  quite  different  from  the  last, — to  wit,  im- 
patience and  resentfulness.  A  high  Christian  ideal  and 
a  strict  self-judgement  will  render  us  more  sensitive  to 
wrong-doing  in  the  world  around  us.  Unless  tempered 
with  abundant  charity,  they  may  lead  to  harsh  and 
one-sided  censure.  Gentle  natures,  reluctant  to  con- 
demn, are  sometimes  slow  and  difficult  in  forgiveness. 
Humbleness  and  meekness  are  choice  graces  of  the 
Spirit.  But  they  are  self-regarding  virtues  at  the  best, 
and  may  be  found  in  a  cold  nature  that  has  little  of 
the  patience  which  bears  with  men's  infirmities,  of  the 
sympathetic  insight  that  discovers  the  good  often  lying 
close  to  their  faults.  "  Above  all  things " — above 
kindness,  meekness,  long-suffering,  forgivingness — 
''put  on  love,  which  is  the  bond  of  perfectness  "| 
(Col.  iii.  14).  Love  is  the  last  word  of  St  Paul's 
definition  of  the  Christian  temper  in  verse  2, ;  it  is  the 
sum  and  essence  of  all  that  makes  for  Christian  unity. 
In  it  lies  a  charm  which  can  overcome  both  the  lighter 
provocations  and  the  grave  offences  of  human  inter- 
course,— offences  that  must  needs  arise  in  the  purest 
society  composed  of  infirm  and  sinful  men.  "  Bind  thy- 
self to  thy  brother.  Those  who  are  bound  together  in 
love,  bear  all  burdens  lightly.  Bind  thyself  to  him,  and 
him  to  thee.  Both  are  in  thy  power  ;  for  whomsoever 
I  will,  I  may  easily  make  my  friend  "  (Chrysostom). 


iv.  1-6  ]  THE  FUNDAMENTAL   UNITIES.  217 


Verses  1-3  exhibit  the  temper  in  which  the  unity  of 
the  Church  is  to  be  maintained.  Verses  4-6  set  forth 
the  basis  upon  which  it  rests.  This  passage  is  a  brief 
summary  of  Christian  doctrine.  It  defines  the  "  foun- 
dation of  the  apostles  and  prophets "  asserted  in 
chapter  ii.  20, — the  groundwork  of  "  every  building  " 
in  God's  holy  temple,  the  foundation  upon  which  Paul's 
Gentile  readers,  along  with  the  Jewish  saints,  were 
growing  into  one  holy  temple  in  the  Lord.  Seven 
elements  of  unity  St  Paul  enumerates  :  one  body,  Spirit^ 
hope ;  one  Lord,  faith  and  baptism  ;  one  God  and  Father 
of  all.  They  form  a  chain  stretching  from  the  Church 
on  earth  to  the  throne  and  being  of  the  universal 
Father  in  heaven. 

Closely  considered,  we  find  that  the  seven  unities 
resolve  themselves  into  three,  centring  in  the  names 
of  the  Divine  Trinity — the  Spirit,  the  Lord,  and  the 
Father.  The  Spirit  and  the  Lord  are  each  accompanied 
by  two  kindred  uniting  elements ;  while  the  one  God 
and  Father,  placed  alone,  in  Himself  forms  a  threefold 
bond  to  His  creatures — by  His  sovereign  power,  per- 
vasive action,  and  immanent  presence:  "Who  is  over 
all,  and  through  all,  and  in  all "  (comp.  i.  23). 

The  rhythm  of  expression  in  these  verses  suggests 
that  they  belonged  to  some  apostolic  Christian  song. 
Other  passages  in  Paul's  later  epistles  betray  the  same 
character;*  and  we  know  from  chapter  v.  19  and 
Colossians  iii.  16  that  the  Pauline  Church  was  already 
rich  in  psalmody.  This  epistle  shows  that  St  Paul 
was  touched  with  the  poetic  as  well  as  the  prophetical 
afQatus.  He  expected  his  people  to  sing;  and  we 
see  no  reason  why  he  should  not,  like  Luther  and  the 

*  See  ch.  v.  14;  i  Tim.  i.  17,  ii.  5,  6,  vi.  15,  16;  2  Tim.  ii. 
11-13. 


2i8  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


Wesleys  afterwards,  have  taught  them  to  do  so  by 
giving  voice  to  the  joy  of  the  new-found  faith  in 
"  hymns  and  spiritual  songs."  These  lines,  we  could 
fancy,  belonged  to  some  chant  sung  in  the  Christian 
assemblies ;  they  form  a  brief  metrical  creed,  the  con- 
fession of  the  Church  then  and  in  all  ages. 

I.   One  body  there  is,  and  one  Spirit. 

The  former  was  a  patent  fact.  Believers  in  Jesus 
Christ  formed  a  single  body,  the  same  in  all  essentials 
of  religion,  sharply  distinguished  from  their  Jewish  and 
their  Pagan  neighbours.  Although  the  distinctions 
now  existing  amongst  Christians  are  vastly  greater 
and  more  numerous,  and  the  boundaries  between  the 
Church  and  the  world  at  many  points  are  much  less 
visible,  yet  there  is  a  true  unity  that  binds  together 
those  *'  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians  " 
throughout  the  world.  As  against  the  multitudes  of 
heathen  and  idolaters  ;  as  against  Jewish  and  Moham- 
medan rejecters  of  our  Christ ;  as  against  atheists  and 
agnostics  and  all  deniers  of  the  Lord,  we  are  ''  one 
body,"  and  should  feel  and  act  as  one. 

In  missionary  fields,  confronting  the  overwhelming 
forces  and  horrible  evils  of  Paganism,  the  servants  of 
Christ  intensely  realize  their  unity ;  they  see  how 
trifling  in  comparison  are  the  things  that  separate  the 
Churches,  and  how  precious  and  deep  are  the  things 
that  Christians  hold  in  common.  It  may  need  the 
pressure  of  some  threatening  outward  force,  the  sense 
of  a  great  peril  hanging  over  Christendom  to  silence 
our  contentions  and  compel  the  soldiers  of  Christ  to 
fall  into  line  and  present  to  the  enemy  a  united 
front.  If  the  unity  of  behevers  in  Christ — their  one- 
ness of  worship  and  creed,  of  moral  ideal  and  discipline 
— is   hard   to   discern    through   the  variety   of  human 


iv.  1-6.]  THE  FUNDAMENTAL   UNITIES.       .  219 

forms  and  systems  and  the  confusion  of  tongues  that 
prevails,  yet  the  unity  is  there  to  be  discerned  ;  and 
it  grows  clearer  to  us  as  we  look  for  it.  It  is 
visible  in  the  universal  acceptance  of  Scripture  and  the 
primitive  creeds,  in  the  large  measure  of  correspond- 
ence between  the  different  Church  standards  of  the 
Protestant  communions,  in  our  common  Christian  litera- 
ture, in  the  numerous  alliances  and  combinations,  local 
and  general,  that  exist  for  philanthropic  and  missionary 
objects,  in  the  increasing  and  auspicious  comity  of  the 
Churches.  The  nearer  we  get  to  the  essentials  of 
truth  and  to  the  experience  of  living  Christian  men, 
the  more  we  realize  the  existence  of  one  body  in  the 
scattered  limbs  and  innumerable  sects  of  Christendom. 
There  is  "  one  body  and  one  Spirit "  :  one  body 
because,  and  so  far  as  there  is  one  Spirit.  What  is  it 
constitutes  the  unity  of  our  physical  frame  ?  Outward 
attachment,  mechanical  juxtaposition  go  for  nothing. 
What  I  grasp  in  my  hand  or  put  between  my  lips  is 
no  part  of  me,  any  more  than  if  it  were  in  another 
planet.  The  clothes  I  wear  take  the  body's  shape; 
they  partake  of  its  warmth  and  movement ;  they  give 
its  outward  presentment.  They  are  not  of  the  body  for 
all  this.  But  the  fingers  that  clasp,  the  lips  that  touch, 
the  limbs  that  move  and  glow  beneath  the  raiment, — 
these  are  the  body  itself;  and  everything  belongs  to  it, 
however  slight  in  substance,  or  uncomely  or  unservice- 
able, nay,  however  diseased  and  burdensome,  that  is 
vitally  connected  with  it.  The  life  that  thrills  through 
nerve  and  artery,  the  spirit  that  animates  with  one 
will  and  being  the  whole  framework  and  governs  its 
ten  thousand  delicate  springs  and  interlacing  cords, — it 
is  this  that  makes  one  body  of  an  otherwise  inert  and 
decaying  heap  of  matter.     Let  the  spirit  depart,  it  is 


220  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESL4NS. 

a  body  no  more,  but  a  corpse.  So  with  the  body  of 
Christ,  and  its  members  in  particular.  Am  I  a  living, 
integral  part  of  the  Church,  quickened  by  its  Spirit?  or 
do  I  belong  only  to  the  raiment  and  the  furniture  that  are 
about  it  ?  '*  If  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
he  is  none  of  His." 

He  -who  has  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  v^rill  find  a  place 
within  His  body.  The  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  is  a  com- 
municative, sociable  spirit.  The  child  of  God  seeks  out 
his  brethren ;  like  is  drawn  to  Hke,  bone  to  bone  and 
sinew  to  its  sinew  in  the  building  up  of  the  risen  body. 
By  an  instinct  of  its  life,  the  new-born  soul  forms 
bonds  of  attachment  for  itself  to  the  Christian  souls 
nearest  to  it,  to  those  amongst  whom  it  is  placed  in 
God's  dispensation  of  grace.  The  ministry,  the  com- 
munity through  which  it  received  spiritual  life  and  that 
travailed  for  its  birth  claim  it  by  a  parental  right  that 
may  not  be  disowned,  nor  at  any  time  renounced 
without  loss  and  peril. 

Where  the  Spirit  of  Christ  dwells  as  a  vitalizing, 
formative  principle,  it  finds  or  makes  for  itself  a  body. 
Let  no  man  say  :  I  have  the  spirit  of  rehgion  ;  I  can 
dispense  with  forms.  I  need  no  fellowship  with  men  ; 
I  prefer  to  walk  with  God. — God  will  not  walk  with 
men  who  do  not  care  to  walk  with  His  people.  He 
*'  loved  the  world  "  ;  and  we  must  love  it,  or  we  dis- 
please Him.  ^*  This  commandment  have  we  from  Him, 
that  he  who  loves  God  love  his  brother  also." 

The  oneness  of  communion  amongst  the  people  of 
Christ  is  governed  by  a  unity  of  aim  :  ''  Even  as  also 
you  were  called  in  one  hope'  of  your  calling."  Our 
fellowship  has  an  object  to  realize,  our  calling  a  prize 
to  win.  All  Christian  organization  is  directed  to  a 
practical  end.     The   old    Pagan   world   fell   to  pieces 


-6.]  THE    FUNDAMENTAL    UNITIES. 


because  it  was  "  without  hope  "  ;  its  golden  age  was  in 
the  past.  No  society  can  endure  that  lives  upon  its 
memories,  or  that  contents  itself  with  cherishing  its 
privileges.  Nothing  holds  men  together  like  work  and 
hope.  This  gives  energy,  purpose,  progress  to  the 
fellowship  of  Christian  believers.  In  this  imperfect 
and  unsatisfying  world,  with  the  majority  of  our  race 
still  in  bondage  to  evil,  it  is  idle  for  us  to  combine  for 
any  purpose  that  does  not  bear  on  human  improvement 
and  salvation.  The  Church  of  Christ  is  a  society  for 
the  abolition  of  sin  and  death.  That  this  will  be 
accomplished,  that  God's  will  shall  be  done  on  earth 
as  in  heaven,  is  the  hope  of  our  calling.  To  this 
hope  we  "  were  called  "  by  the  first  summons  of  the 
gospel.  *'  Repent,"  it  cried,  *'  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand  !  " 

For  ourselves,  in  our  personal  quality,  Christianity 
holds  out  a  splendid  crown  of  life.  It  promises  our 
complete  restoration  to  the  image  of  God,  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  body  with  the  spirit  from  death,  and  our 
entrance  upon  an  eternal  fellowship  with  Christ  in 
heaven.  This  hope,  shared  by  us  in  common  and 
affecting  all  the  interests  and  relationships  of  daily  life, 
is  the  ground  of  our  communion.  The  Christian  hope 
supplies  to  men,  more  truly  and  constantly  than  Nature 
in  her  most  exalted  forms, 

"  The  anchor  of  theii-  purest  thoughts,  the  nurse, 
The  guide,  the  guardian  of  their  heart,  and  soul 
Of  all  their  moral  being." 

Happy  are  the  wife  and  husband,  happy  the  master 
and  servants,  happy  the  circle  of  friends  who  live  and 
work  together  as  "joint-heirs  of  the  grace  of  life." 
Well  says  Calvin  here  :  "  If  this  thought  were  fixed 
in  our  minds,  this  law  laid  upon  us,  that  the  sons  of 


222  THE   EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

God  may  no  more  quarrel  than  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
can  be  divided,  how  much  more  careful  we  should  be 
in  cultivating  brotherly  good-will !  What  a  dread  we 
should  have  of  dissensions,  if  we  considered,  as  we 
ought  to  do,  that  those  who  separate  from  their 
brethren,  exile  themselves  from  the  kingdom  of  God." 
But  the  hope  of  our  calling  is  a  hope  for  mankind, 
— nay,  for  the  entire  universe.  We  labour  for  the  re- 
generation of  humanity.  '*  We  look  for  a  new  heavens 
and  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness  ; "  for  the 
actual  gathering  into  one  in  Christ  of  all  things  in 
all  worlds,  as  they  are  already  gathered  in  God's 
eternal  plan.  Now  if  it  were  merely  a  personal  salva- 
tion that  we  had  to  seek.  Christian  communion  might 
appear  to  be  an  optional  thing,  and  the  Church  no  more 
than  a  society  for  mutual  spiritual  benefit.  But  seen 
in  this  larger  light.  Church  membership  is  of  the 
essence  of  our  calling.  As  children  of  the  household 
of  faith,  we  are  heirs  to  its  duties  with  its  possessions. 
We  cannot  escape  the  obligations  of  our  spiritual  any 
more  than  of  our  natural  birth.  One  Spirit  dwelling 
in  each,  one  sublime  ideal  inspiring  us  and  guiding  all 
our  efforts,  how  shall  we  not  be  one  body  in  the 
fellowship  of  Christ  ?  This  hope  of  our  calling  it  is 
our  calling  to  breathe  into  the  dead  world.  Its  virtue 
alone  can  dispel  the  gloom  and  discord  of  the  age. 
From  the  fountain  of  God's  love  in  Christ  springing 
up  in  the  heart  of  the  Church,  there  shall  pour  forth 

"  One  common  wave  of  thought  and  joy, 
'    Liftmg  mankind  again  !  " 

II.  The  first  group  of  unities  leads  us  to  the  second. 
If  one  Spirit  dwells  within  us,  it  is  one  Lord  who  reigns 
over  us:,     We  have  one  hope  to  work  for ;  it  is  because 


-6.]  THE  FUNDAMENTAL    UNITIES.  223 


we  have  one  faith  to  live   by.     A  common   fellowship 
implies  a  common  creed. 

Thus  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord  takes  His  place  fourth 
in  this  list  of  unities,  between  hope  and  faith,  between 
the  Spirit  and  the  Father.  He  is  the  centre  of  centres, 
the  Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  throne,  the  Christ  in  the 
midst  of  the  ages.  United  with  Christ,  we  are  at  unity 
with  God  and  with  our  fellow-men.  We  find  in  Him 
the  fulcrum  of  the  forces  that  are  raising  the  world,  the 
corner-stone  of  the  temple  of  humanity. 

But  let  us  mark  that  it  is  the  one  Lord  in  whom  we 
find  our  unity.  To  think  of  Him  as  Saviour  only  is 
to  treat  Him  as  a  means  to  an  end.  It  is  to  make 
ourselves  the  centre,  not  Christ.  This  is  the  secret 
of  much  of  the  isolation  and  sectarianism  of  modern 
Churches.  Individualism  is  the  negation  of  Church 
life.  Men  value  Christ  for  what  they  can  get  from 
Him  for  themselves.  They  do  not  follow  Him  and 
yield  themselves  up  to  Him,  for  the  sake  of  what  He 
is.  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  are  burdened,  and 
I  will  give  you  rest "  :  they  Hsten  willingly  so  far.  But 
when  He  goes  on  to  say  "  Take  my  yoke  upon  you," 
their  ears  are  deaf.  There  is  a  subtle  self-seeking  and 
self-pleasing  even  in  the  way  of  salvation. 

From  this  springs  the  disloyalty,  the  want  of  affection 
for  the  Church,  the  indifference  to  all  Christian  interests 
beyond  the  personal  and  local,  which  is  worse  than 
strife;  for  it  is  death  to  the  body  of  Christ.  The 
name  of  the  ''  one  Lord  "  silences  party  clamours  and 
rebukes  the  voices  that  cry,  "  I  am  of  Apollos,  I  of 
Cephas."  It  recalls  loiterers  and  stragglers  to  the 
ranks.  It  bids  each  of  us,  in  his  own  station  of  life 
and  his  own  place  in  the  Church,  serve  the  common 
canae  without  sloth  and  without  ambition. 


224  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


Christ's  Lordship  over  us  for  life  and  death  is  signi- 
fied by  our  baptism  in  His  name.  We  have  received, 
most  of  us  in  infancy  through  our  parents'  reverent 
care,  the  token  of  allegiance  to  the  Lord  Christ.  The 
baptismal  water  that  He  bade  all  nations  receive  from 
His  apostles,  has  been  sprinkled  upon  you.  Shall  this 
be  in  vain  ?  Or  do  you  now,  by  the  faith  of  your 
heart  in  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord,  endorse  the  faith  of 
your  parents  and  the  Church  exercised  on  your  behalf? 
If  so,  your  faith  saves  you.  Your  obedience  is  at  once 
accepted  by  the  Lord  to  whom  it  is  tendered  ;  and  the 
sign  of  God's  redemption  of  the  race  which  greeted  you 
at  your  entrance  into  life,  assumes  for  you  all  its  signi- 
ficance and  worth.  It  is  the  seal  upon  your  brow, 
now  stamped  upon  your  heart,  of  your  eternal  covenant 
with  Christ. 

But  it  is  the  seal  of  a  corporate  life  in  Him.  Chris- 
tian baptism  is  no  private  transaction  ;  it  attests  no 
mere  secret  vow  passing  between  the  soul  and  its 
Saviour.  "  For  in  one  Spirit  we  were  all  baptized  into 
one  body,  whether  Jews  or  Greeks,  whether  bond  or 
free;  and  were  all  made  to  drink  of  one  Spirit"  (i  Cor. 
xii.  13).  Our  baptism  is  the  sign  of  a  common  faith 
and  hope,  and  binds  us  at  once  to  Christ  and  to  His 
Church. 

One  baptism  there  has  been  through  all  the  ages 
since  the  ascending  Lord  said  to  His  disciples  :  "  Go, 
make  disciples  of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  into 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Spirit."  The  ordinance  has  been  administered 
in  different  ways  and  under  varying  regulations  ;  but 
with  few  exceptions,  it  has  been  observed  from  the 
beginning  by  every  Christian  community  in  fulfilment 
of  the  word  of  Christ,  and  in  acknowledgement  of  His 


iv.  1-6.]  THE  FUNDAMENTAL    UNITIES.  225 


dominion.  Those  who  insist  on  the  sole  vaUdity  of 
this  or  that  mode  or  channel  of  administration,  recognize 
at  least  the  intention  of  Churches  baptizing  otherwise 
than  themselves  to  honour  the  one  Lord  in  thus  con- 
fessing His  name  ;  and  so  far  admit  that  there  is  in 
truth  "  one  baptism."  Wherever  Christ's  sacraments 
are  observed  with  a  true  faith,  they  serve  as  visible 
tokens  of  His  rule. 

In  this  rule  lies  the  ultimate  ground  of  union  for 
men,  and  for  all  creatures.  Our  fellowship  in  the  faith 
of  Christ  is  deep  as  the  nature  of  God  ;  its  blessedness 
rich  as  His  love  ;  its  bonds  strong  and  eternal  as  His 
power. 

III.  The  last  and  greatest  of  the  unities  still  remains. 
Add  to  our  fellowship  in  the  one  Spirit  and  confession 
of  the  one  Lord,  our  adoption  by  the  one  God  and  Father 
of  all 

To  the  Gentile  converts  of  the  Asian  cities  this  was 
a  new  and  marvellous  thought.  ''Great  is  Artemis 
of  the  Ephesians,"  they  had  been  used  to  shout ;  or 
haply,  "  Great  is  Aphrodite  of  the  Pergamenes,"  or 
"  Bacchus  of  the  Philadelphians."  Great  they  knew 
was  "  Jupiter  Best  and  Greatest  "  of  conquering  Rome  ; 
and  great  the  niimen  of  the  Caesar,  to  which  everywhere 
in  this  rich  and  servile  province  shrines  were  rising. 
Each  city  and  tribe,  each  grove  or  fountain  or  sheltering 
hill  had  its  local  genius  or  daimon,  requiring  worship 
and  sacrificial  honours.  Every  office  and  occupation, 
every  function  in  life — navigation,  midwifery,  even 
thieving — was  under  the  patronage  of  its  special  deity. 
These  petty  godships  by  their  number  and  rivalries 
distracted  the  pious  heathen  with  continual  fear  lest  one 
or  other  of  them  might  not  have  received  due  observance. 

With  what  a  grand  simplicity  the  Christian  concep- 

15 


226  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

tion  of  "  the  one  God  and  P'ather "  rose  above  this 
vulgar  pantheon,  this  swarm  of  motley  deities — some 
gay  and  wanton,  some  dark  and  cruel,  some  of  supposed 
beneficence,  all  infected  with  human  passion  and  base- 
ness— which  filled  the  imagination  of  the  Graeco-Asiatic 
pagans.  What  rest  there  was  for  the  mind,  what  peace 
and  freedom  for  the  spirit  in  turning  from  such  deities 
to  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! 

Here  is  no  jealous  Monarch  regarding  men  as 
tribute-payers,  and  needing  to  be  served  by  human 
hands.  He  is  the  Father  of  men,  pitying  us  as  His 
children  and  giving  us  all  things  richly  to  enjoy.  Our 
God  is  no  local  divinity,  to  be  honoured  here  but  not 
there,  tied  to  His  temple  and  images  and  priestly 
mediators;  but  the  "one  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is 
above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  all."  This  was  the 
very  God  whom  the  logic  of  Greek  thought  and  the 
practical  instincts  of  Roman  law  and  empire  blindly 
sought.  Through  ages  He  had  revealed  Himself  to 
the  people  of  Israel,  who  were  now  dispersed  amongst 
the  nations  to  bear  His  light.  At  last  He  declared  His 
full  name  and  purpose  to  the  world  in  Jesus  Christ. 
So  the  gods  many  and  lords  many  have  had  their  day. 
By  His  manifestation  the  idols  are  utterly  abolished. 
The  proclamation  of  one  God  and  Father  signifies  the 
gathering  of  men  into  one  family  of  God.  The  one 
religion  supplies  the  basis  for  one  life  in  all  the  world. 

God  is  overall,  gathering  all  worlds  and  beings  under 
the  shadow  of  His  beneficent  dominion.  He  is  through 
all,  and  in  all:  an  Omnipresence  of  love,  righteousness 
and  wisdom,  actuating  the  powers  of  nature  and  of 
grace,  inhabiting  the  Church  and  the  heart  of  men. 
You  need  not  go  far  to  seek  Him  ;  if  you  believe  in 
Him,  you  are  yourself  His  temple. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE  MEASURE  OF  THE   GIFT  OF  CHRIST. 

"But  unto  each  one  of  us  was  the  grace  given  according  to  the 
measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ.  Wherefore  He  saith  :  '  When  He  ascended 
on  high,  He  led  captivity  captive,  and  gave  gifts  unto  men.'  Now  this, 
*  He  ascended,'  what  is  it  but  that  He  also  descended  into  the  lower  parts 
of  the  earth?  He  that  descended  is  the  same  also  that  ascended  far 
above  all  the  heavens,  that  He  might  fill  all  things.  And  He  gave  some 
to  be  apostles  ;  and  some,  prophets  ;  and  some  evangelists  ;  and  some, 
pastors  and  teachers  ;  for  the  perfecting  of  the  saints  for  work  of  minis- 
tration, for  the  building  up  of  the  body  of  Christ." — Eph.  iv.  7-12. 

IN  verse  7  the  apostle  passes  from  the  unities  of  the 
Church  to  its  diversities,  from  the  common  founda- 
tion of  the  Christian  life  to  the  variety  presented  in  its 
superstructure.  **To  each  single  one  of  us  was  the 
grace  given."  The  great  gift  of  God  in  Christ  is 
manifold  in  its  distribution.  Its  manifestations  are 
as  various  and  fresh  as  the  idiosyncrasies  of  human 
personality.  There  is  no  capacity  of  our  nature,  no 
element  of  human  society  which  the  gospel  of  Christ 
cannot  sanctify  and  turn  to  good  account. 

All  this  the  apostle  keeps  in  view  and  allows  for  in 
his  doctrine  of  the  Church.  He  does  not  merge  man  in 
humanity,  nor  sacrifice  the  individual  to  the  community. 
He  claims  for  each  believer  direct  fellowship  with  Christ 

227 


228  THE   EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

and  access  to  God.  The  earnestness  with  which  in  his 
earlier  epistles  St  Paul  insisted  on  the  responsibilities 
of  conscience  and  on  the  personal  experience  of  salvation, 
leads  him  now  to  press  the  claims  of  the  Church  with 
equal  vigour.  He  understands  well  that  the  person 
has  no  existence  apart  from  the  community,  that  our 
moral  nature  is  essentially  social  and  the  religious  life 
essentially  fraternal.  Its  vital  element  is  "the  com- 
munion of  the  Holy  Spirit."  Hence,  to  gather  the  real 
drift  of  this  passage  we  must  combine  the  first  words 
of  verse  7  with  the  last  of  verse  12  :  '^  To  each  single 
one  of  us  was  the  grace  given — in  order  to  build  up  the 
body  of  Christ."  God's  grace  is  not  bestowed  upon  us 
to  diffuse  and  lose  itself  in  our  separate  individualities ; 
but  that  it  may  minister  to  one  life  and  work  towards 
one  end  and  build  up  one  great  body  in  us  all.  The 
diversity  subserves  a  higher  unity.  Through  ten 
thousand  channels,  in  ten  thousand  varied  forms  of 
personal  influence  and  action,  the  stream  of  the  grace 
of  God  flows  on  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  eternal 
purpose. 

Like  a  wise  master  in  his  household  and  sovereign 
in  his  kingdom,  the  Lord  of  the  Church  distributes 
His  manifold  gifts.  His  bestowments  and  appoint- 
ments are  made  with  an  eye  to  the  furtherance  of 
the  state  and  house  that  He  has  in  charge.  As  God 
dispenses  His  wisdom,  so  Christ  His  gifts  '^according 
to  plan "  (iii.  ii).  The  purpose  of  the  ages,  God's 
great  plan  for  mankind,  determines  "the  measure  of 
the  gift  of  Christ."  Now,  it  is  to  illustrate  this  measure, 
to  set  forth  the  style  and  scale  of  Christ's  bestow- 
ments within  His  Church,  that  the  apostle  brings  in 
evidence  the  words  of  Psalm  Ixviii.  18.  He  interprets 
this  ancient   verse  as  he   cites  it,  and  weaves  it  into 


iv.7-i2.]     THE  MEASURE  OF  THE  GIFT  OF  CHRIST.     229 


the  texture  of  his  argument.     In  the  original  it  reads 
thus : 

"  Thou  hast  ascended  on  high,  Thou  hast  led  Thy  captivity  captive, 
Thou  hast  received  gifts  among  men, — 

Yea,  among  the  rebellious  also,  that  the  Lord  God  might  dwell  with 
them."     (R.V.) 

Let  us  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the  occasion  of 
the  old  Hebrew  song.  Psalm  Ixviii.  is,  as  Ewald 
says,  "the  greatest,  most  splendid  and  artistic  of  the 
temple-songs  of  Restored  Jerusalem."  It  celebrates 
Jehovah's  entry  into  Zion.  This  culminating  verse 
records,  as  the  crowning  event  of  Israel's  history,  the 
capture  of  Zion  from  the  rebel  Jebusites  and  the 
Lord's  ascension  in  the  person  of  His  chosen  to  take 
His  seat  upon  this  holy  hill.  The  previous  verses,  in 
which  fragments  of  earlier  songs  are  embedded,  describe 
the  course  of  the  Divine  Leader  of  Israel  through 
former  ages.  In  the  beat  and  rhythm  of  the  Hebrew 
Hnes  one  hears  the  footfall  of  the  Conqueror's  march, 
as  He  "arises  and  His  enemies  are  scattered"  and 
"kings  of  armies  flee  apace,"  while  nature  trembles 
at  His  step  and  bends  her  wild  powers  to  serve  His 
congregation.  The  sojourn  in  the  wilderness,  the 
scenes  of  Sinai,  the  occupancy  of  Canaan,  the  wars  of 
the  Judges  were  so  many  stages  in  the  progress  of 
Jehovah,  which  had  Zion  always  for  its  goal.  To 
Zion,  the  new  and  more  glorious  sanctuary,  Sinai  must 
now  give  place.  Bashan  and  all  mountains  towering 
in  their  pride  in  vain  "  look  askance  at  the  hill  which 
God  has  desired  for  His  abode,"  where  "Jehovah  will 
dwell  for  ever."  So  the  day  of  the  Lord's  desire  has 
come !  From  the  Kidron  valley  David  leads  Jehovah's 
triumph  up  the  steep  slopes  of  Mount  Zion.  A  train 
of  captives  defiles    before    the    Lord's  anointed,   who 


230  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

sits  down  on  the  throne  that  God  gives  him  and 
receives  in  His  name  the  submission  of  the  heathen. 
The  vanquished  chiefs  cast  their  spoil  at  his  feet ;  it 
is  laid  up  in  treasure  to  build  the  future  temple ;  while, 
upon  this  happy  day  of  peace,  ''  the  rebellious  also  " 
share  in  Jehovah's  grace  and  become  His  subjects. 

In  this  conquest  David  "  gave  to  men  "  rather  than 
''  received  " — gave  even  to  his  stubborn  enemies  (witness 
his  subsequent  transaction  with  Araunah  the  Jebusite 
for  the  site  of  the  temple) ;  for  that  which  he  took  from 
them  served  to  build  amongst  them  God's  habitation  : 
"  that,"  as  the  Psalmist  sings,  ''  the  Lord  God  might 
dwell  with  them."  St  Paul's  adaptation  of  the  verse 
is  both  bold  and  true.  If  he  departs  from  the  letter, 
he  unfolds  the  spirit  of  the  prophetic  words.  That 
David's  giving  signified  a  higher  receiving^  Jewish 
interpreters  themselves  seem  to  have  felt,  for  this 
paraphrase  was  current  also  amongst  them. 

The  author  of  this  Hebrew  song  has  in  no  way 
exaggerated  the  importance  of  David's  victory.  The 
summits  of  the  elect  nation's  history  shine  with  a 
supernatural  and  prophetic  light.  The  spirit  of  the 
Christ  in  the  unknown  singer  "  testified  beforehand 
of  the  glory  that  should  follow "  His  warfare  and 
sufferings.  From  this  victorious  height,  so  hardly 
won,  the  Psalmist's  verse  flashes  the  light  of  promise 
across  the  space  of  a  thousand  years ;  and  St  Paul 
has  caught  the  light,  and  sends  it  on  to  us  shining 
with  a  new  and  more  spiritual  brightness.  David's 
''going  up  on  high"  was,  to  the  apostle's  mind,  a 
picture  of  the  ascent  of  Christ,  his  Son  and  Lord. 
David  rose  from  deep  humiliation  to  a  high '  dominion  ; 
his  exaltation  brought  blessing  and  enrichment  to  his 
people ;    and   the   spoil   that   he   won  with   it  went   to 


iv.  7-12]     THE  MEASURE  OF  THE  GIFT  OF  CHRIST.     231 

build  God's  house  amongst  rebellious  men.  All  thi^ 
was  true  in  parable  of  the  dispensation  of  grace  to 
mankind  through  Jesus  Christ ;  and  His  ascension 
disclosed  the  deeper  import  of  the  words  of  the  ancient 
Scripture.  "  Wherefore  God  saith  "  (and  St  Paul  takes 
the  liberty  of  putting  in  his  own  words  wJiat  He  saith) 
— "  wherefore  He  saith  :  He  ascended  on  high  ;  He  led 
captivity  captive ;   He  gave  gifts  to  men." 

The  three  short  clauses  of  the  citation  supply,  in 
effect,  a  threefold  measure  of  the  gifts  of  Christ  to  His 
Church.  They  are  gifts  of  the  ascended  Saviour.  They 
are  gifts  bestowed  from  the  fruit  of  His  victory.  And 
they  are  gifts  to  men.  Measure  them,  first,  by  the 
height  to  which  He  has  risen — from  what  a  depth  ! 
Measure  them,  again,  by  the  spoils  He  has  already 
won.  Measure  them,  once  more,  by  the  wants  of 
mankind,  by  the  need  He  has  undertaken  to  supply. — 
As  He  is,  so  He  gives ;  as  He  has,  so  He  gives ;  as 
He  has  given,  so  He  will  give  till  we  are  filled  unto 
all  the  fulness  of  God. 

I.  Think  first,  then,  of  Him.  Think  of  what,  and 
where  He  is  !  Consider  ''what  is  the  height "  of  His 
exaltation  ;  and  then  say,  if  you  can,  "  what  is  the 
breadth  "  of  His  munificence. 

We  know  well  how  He  gave  as  a  poor  and  suffering 
man  upon  earth — gave,  with  what  afQuence,  pity  and 
delight,  bread  to  the  hungry  thousands,  wine  to  the 
wedding-feast,  health  to  the  sick,  sight  to  the  blind, 
pardon  to  the  sinful,  sometimes  life  to  the  dead  !  Has 
His  elevation  altered  Him  ?  Too  often  it  is  so  with 
vain  and  weak  meji  like  ourselves.  Their  wealth  in- 
creases, but  their  hearts  contract.  The  more  they 
have  to  give,  the  less  they  love  to  give.     They  go  up 


232  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

on  high  as  men  count  it,  and  dimb  to  places  of  power 
and  eminence  ;  and  they  forget  the  friends  of  youth 
and  the  ranks  from  which  they  sprang — low-minded 
men.  Not  so  with  our  exalted  Friend.  "  It  is  not 
one  that  went  down,  and  another  that  went  up,"  says 
Theodoret.  ^'He  that  descended,  it  is  He  also  that 
ascended  up  far  above  all  the  heavens!"  (ver.  lo). 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  on  the  throne  of  God, — "  the  same 
yesterday  and  to-day  ! "  But  now  the  resources  of  the 
universe  are  at  His  disposal.  Out  of  that  treasure  He 
can  choose  the  best  gifts  for  you  and  me. 

Mere  authority,  even  Omnipotence,  could  not  suffice 
to  save  and  bless  moral  beings  like  ourselves ;  nor 
even  the  best  will  joined  to  Omnipotence.  Christ 
gained  by  His  humiliation,  in  some  sense,  a  new  fulness 
added  to  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead.  This  gain  of 
His  sufferings  is  implied  in  what  the  apostle  writes 
in  Colossians  i.  19  concerning  the  risen  and  exalted 
Redeemer:  *'It  was  well-pleasing  that  all  the  fulness 
should  make  its  dwelling  in  Him."  His  plenitude  is 
that  of  the  Ascended  One  who  had  descended.  "  If 
He  ascended,  what  does  it  mean  but  that  He  also 
descended  into  the  under  regions  of  the  earth  ?  "  (ver.  9). 
If  He  went  up,  why  then  He  had  been  down  ! — down 
to  the  Virgin's  womb  and  the  manger  cradle,  wrapping 
His  Godhead  within  the  frame  and  the  brain  of  a  little 
child ;  down  to  the  home  and  the  bench  of  the  village 
carpenter;  down  to  the  contradiction  of  sinners  and 
the  level  of  their  scorn ;  down  to  the  death  of  the 
cross, — to  the  nether  abyss,  to  that  dim  populous 
underworld  into  which  we  look  shuddering  over  the 
grave's  edge  !  And  from  that  lower  gulf  He  mounted 
up  again  to  the  solid  earth  and  the  light  of  day  and 
the  world  of  breathing  men  ;    and  up,   and  up  again, 


iv.  7-12.]     THE  MEASURE  OF  THE  GIFT  OF  CHRIST.     233 

through  the  rent  clouds  and  the  ranks  of  shouting 
angels,  and  under  the  lifted  heads  of  the  everlasting 
doors,  until  He  took  His  seat  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
Majesty  in  the  heavens. 

Think  of  the  regions  He  has  traversed,  the  range  of 
being  through  which  the  Lord  Jesus  passed  in  descending 
and  ascending,  *'  that  He  might  fill  all  things."  Heaven, 
earth,  hades — hades,  earth,  heaven  again  are  His  ;  not 
in  mere  sovereignty  of  power,  but  in  experience  and 
communion  of  life.  Each  He  has  annexed  to  His 
dominion  by  inhabitation  and  the  right  of  self-devoting 
love,  as  from  sphere  to  sphere  He  "  travelled  in  the 
greatness  of  His  power,  mighty  to  save."  He  is  Lord 
of  angels  ;  but  still  more  of  men, — Lord  of  the  living,  and 
of  the  dead.  To  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  He  has 
proclaimed  His  accomplished  sacrifice  and  the  right  of 
universal  judgement  given  Him  by  the  Father. 

Nor  did  Abraham  alone  and  Moses  and  Elijah  have 
the  joy  of  "  seeing  His  day,"  but  all  the  holy  men  of 
old,  who  had  embraced  its  promise  and  "  died  in  faith," 
who  looked  forward  through  their  imperfect  sacrifices 
'*  which  could  never  quite  take  away  sins  "  to  the  better 
thing  which  God  provided  for  us,  and  for  their  perfec- 
tion along  with  us.*  On  the  two  side-posts  of  the 
gate  of  death  our  great  High  Priest  sprinkled  His 
atoning  blood.  He  turned  the  abode  of  corruption 
into  a  sweet  and  quiet  sleeping  chamber  for  His  saints. 
Then  at  His  touch  those  cruel  doors  swung  back  upon 
their  hinges,  and  He  issued  forth  the  Prince  of  life, 
with  the  keys  of  death  and  hades  hanging  from  His 
girdle.  From  the  depths  of  the  grave  to  the  heaven  of 
heavens  His  Mastership  extends.     With  the  perfume 

*  Comp.  Hebrews  x.  i,  2,  10-14  with  xi.  13-16,  39,  40,  xii.  23,  24; 
also  vi.  12. 


234  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  His  presence  and  the  rich  incense  of  His  sacrifice 
Jesus  Christ  has  "  filled  all  things."  The  universe  is 
made  for  us  one  realm  of  redeeming  grace,  the  kingdom 
of  the  Son  of  God's  love. 

"So  there  crowns  Him  the  topmost,  ineffablest,  uttermost  crown; 
And  His  love  fills  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leaves  up  nor  down 
One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in  ! "  * 

So  "  Christ  is  all  things,  and  in  all."  And  w^e  are 
nothing ;  but  we  have  everything  in  Him. 

How,  pray,  will  He  give  who  has  thus  given  Himself, 
— who  has  thus  endured  and  achieved  on  our  behalf  ? 
Let  our  hearts  consider;  let  our  faith  and  our  need 
be  bold  to  ask.  One  promise  from  His  lips  is  enough  : 
"  If  ye  shall  ask  anything  in  my  name,  I  will  do  it." 

II.  A  second  estimate  of  the  gifts  to  be  looked  for 
from  Christ,  we  derive  from  His  conquests  already 
won.  David  as  he  entered  Zion's  gates  "  led  captivity 
captive," — led,  that  is  in  Hebrew  phrase,  a  great,  a 
notable  captivity.  Out  of  the  gifts  thus  received  he 
enriched  his  people.  The  resources  that  victory  placed 
at  his  disposal,  furnished  the  store  from  which  to  build 
God's  house.  In  like  fashion  Christ  builds  His  Church, 
and  blesses  the  human  race.  With  the  spoils  of  His 
battle  He  adorns  His  bride.  The  prey  taken  from  the 
mighty  becomes  the  strength  and  beauty  of  His  sanc- 
tuary. The  prisoners  of  His  love  He  makes  the 
servants  of  mankind. 

This  ^'  captivity "  implies  a  warfare,  even  as  the 
ascent  of  Christ  a  previous  descending.  The  Son  of 
God  came  not  into  His  earthly  kingdom  as  kings  are 
said  to  have  come  sometimes  disguised  amongst  their 

*  The  words  of  David  in  Browning's  Saul,  turned  from  the  future 
tense  into  the  present. 


IV 


7-12.]     THE  MEASURE  OF  THE  GIFT  OF  CHRIST.     235 


subjects,  that  they  might  learn  better  of  their  state  and 
hear  their  true  mind  ;  nor  as  the  Greeks  fabled  of  their 
gods,  who  wandered  unknown  on  earth  seeking  adven- 
ture and  wearied  haply  of  the  cloying  felicities  of  heaven, 
suffering  contempt  and  doing  to  men  hard  service. 
He  came,  the  Good  Shepherd,  to  seek  lost  sheep.  He 
came,  the  Mighty  One  of  God,  to  destroy  the  works  of 
the  devil,  to  drive  out  "  the  strong  one  armed  "  who 
held  the  fortress  of  man's  soul.  He  had  a  war  to  wage 
with  the  usurping  prince  of  the  world.  In  the  tempta- 
tions of  the  wilderness,  in  the  strife  with  disease  and 
demoniac  powers,  in  the  debate  with  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,  in  the  anguish  of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary 
that  conflict  was  fought  out ;  and  by  death  He  abolished 
him  who  holds  the  power  of  death,  by  His  blood  He 
^^  bought  us  for  God."  But  with  the  spoils  of  victory, 
He  bears  the  scars  of  battle, — ^tokens  glorious  for  Him, 
humbling  indeed  to  us,  which  will  tell  for  ever  how  they 
pierced  His  hands  and  feet ! 

For  Him  pain  and  conflict  are  gone  by.  It  remains 
to  gather  in  the  spoil  of  His  victory  of  love,  the 
harvest  sown  in  His  tears  and  His  blood.  And  what 
are  the  trophies  of  the  Captain  of  our  salvation  ?  what 
the  fruit  of  His  dread  passion  ?  For  one,  there  was 
the  dying  thief,  whom  with  His  nailed  hands  the 
Lord  Jesus  snatched  from  a  felon's  doom  and  bore 
from  Calvary  to  Paradise.  There  was  Mary  the 
Magdalene,  out  of  whom  He  had  cast  seven  demons, 
the  first  to  greet  Him  risen.  There  were  the  three 
thousand  whom  on  one  day,  in  the  might  of  His 
Spirit,  the  ascended  Lord  and  Christ  took  captive  in 
rebel  Jerusalem,  "lifted  from  the  earth"  that  He  might 
draw  all  men  unto  Him.  And  there  was  the  writer  of 
this  letter,  once  His  blasphemer  and   persecutor.     By 


236  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

a  look,  by  a  word,  Jesus  arrested  Saul  at  the  height 
of  his  murderous  enmity,  and  changed  him  from  a 
Pharisee  into  an  apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  from  the 
destroyer  into  the  wise  master-builder  of  His  Church. 

St  Paul's  own  case  suggested,  surely,  the  application 
he  makes  of  this  ancient  text  of  the  Psalter  and 
lighted  up  its  Messianic  import.  In  the  glory  of  His 
triumph  Jesus  Christ  had  appeared  to  make  him 
captive,  and  put  him  at  once  to  service.  From  that 
hour  Paul  was  led  along  enthralled,  the  willing  bond- 
slave of  the  Lord  Jesus  and  celebrant  of  His  victory. 
''  Thanks  be  unto  God,"  he  cries,  ''  who  ever  triumphs 
over  ^s  in  the  Christ,  and  makes  manifest  through  us 
the  savour  of  His  knowledge  in  every  place."  * 

Such,  and  of  such  sort  are  the  prisoners  of  the 
war  of  Jesus  ;  such  the  gifts  that  through  sinners 
pardoned  and  subdued  He  bestows  upon  mankind, 
— ''  patterns  to  those  who  should  hereafter  believe." 
Time  would  fail  to  follow  the  train  of  the  captives  of 
the  love  of  Christ,  which  stretches  unbroken  and  ever 
multiplying  through  the  centuries  to  this  day.  We, 
too,  in  our  turn  have  laid  our  rebel  selves  at  His  feet ; 
and  all  that  we  surrender  to  Him,  by  right  of  conquest 
He  gives  over  to  the  service  of  mankind. 

"  His  love  the  conquest  more  than  wins  ; 
To  all  I  shall  proclaim  : 
Jesus  the  King,  the  Conqueror  reigns  ; 
Bow  down  to  Jesu's  name  ! " 

He  gives  out  of  the  spoil  of  His  war  with  evil, — gives 
what  He  receives.  Yet  He  gives  not  as  He  receives. 
Everything  laid    in    His    hands    is  changed    by    their 


*  2  Cor.  ii.  14  ;  comp.  Eph.  ii.  6,  7. 


iv.7-i2.]     THE  MEASURE  OF  THE  GIFT  OF  CHRIST.     237 

touch.  Publicans  and  Pharisees  become  apostles. 
Magdalenes  are  made  queens  and  mothers  in  His 
Israel.  From  the  dregs  of  our  streets  He  raises  up 
a  host  of  sons  to  Abraham.  From  the  ranks  of 
scepticism  and  anti-Christian  hate  the  Lord  Christ  win? 
new  champions  and  captains  for  His  cause.  He  coins 
earth's  basest  metal  into  heaven's  fine  gold.  He  takes 
weak  things  of  the  earth  and  foolish,  to  strike  the 
mightiest  blows  of  battle. 

What  may  we  not  expect  from  Him  who  has  led 
captive  such  a  captivity  !  What  surprises  of  blessing 
and  miracles  of  grace  there  are  awaiting  us,  that  shall 
fill  our  mouth  with  laughter  and  our  tongue  with  singing 
— gifts  and  succours  coming  to  the  Church  from  un- 
looked-for quarters  and  reinforcements  from  the  ranks 
of  the  enemy.  And  what  discomfitures  and  captivities 
are  preparing  for  the  haters  of  the  Lord, — if,  at  least, 
the  future  is  to  be  as  the  past ;  and  if  we  may  judge 
from  the  apostle's  word,  and  from  his  example,  of  the 
measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ. 

in.  A  third  line  of  measurement  is  supplied  in  the 
last  word  of  verse  8,  and  is  drawn  out  in  verses 
II  and  12.  ^^  He  gave  gifts  to  men — He  gave  some 
apostles,  some  prophets,  some  evangelists,  some 
pastors  and  teachers,  with  a  view  to  the  full  equip- 
ment of  the  saints  for  work  of  ministration,  for 
building  up  of  the  body  of  Christ."  Yes,  and  some 
martyrs,  some  missionaries,  some  Church  rulers  and 
Christian  statesmen,  some  poets,  some  deep  thinkers 
and  theologians,  some  leaders  of  philanthropy  and 
helpers  of  the  poor  ;  all  given  for  the  same  end — to 
minister  to  the  life  of  His  Church,  to  furnish  it  with 
the  means  for  carrying  on  its  mission,  and  to  enable 
every  saint  to  contribute  his  part  to  the  commonwealth 


238  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  Christ  according  to  the  measure  of  Christ's  gift  to 
each. 

Comparison  with  verse  1 6  that  follows  and  with 
verse  7  that  precedes,  seems  to  us  to  make  it  clear  that 
we  should  read,  without  a  comma,  the  second  and  third 
clauses  of  verse  12  as  continuations  of  the  first.  The 
'^work  of  ministering"  and  the  "building  up  of  the 
body  of  Christ "  are  not  assigned  to  special  orders  of 
ministry  as  their  exclusive  calling.  Such  honour  have 
all  His  saints.  It  is  the  office  of  the  clergy  to  see  that 
the  laity  do  their  duty,  of  "  the  ministry "  to  make 
each  saint  a  minister  of  Christ,  to  guide,  instruct  and 
animate  the  entire  membership  of  Christ's  body  in 
the  work  He  has  laid  upon  it.  Upon  this  plan  the 
Christian  fellowship  was  organized  and  officered  in 
the  apostolic  times.  Church  government  is  a  means 
to  an  end.  Its  primitive  form  was  that  best  suited  to 
the  age ;  and  even  then  varied  under  different  circum- 
stances. It  was  not  precisely  the  same  at  Jerusalem 
and  at  Corinth  ;  at  Corinth  in  58,  and  at  Ephesus  in 
66  A.D.  That  is  the  best  Church  system,  under  any 
given  conditions,  which  serves  best  to  conserve  and 
develope  the  spiritual  energy  of  the  body  of  Christ. 

The  distribution  of  Church  office  indicated  in  verse 
1 1  corresponds  closely  to  what  we  find  in  the  Pastoral 
epistles.  The  apostle  does  not  profess  to  enumerate 
all  grades  of  ministry.  The  **  deacons  "  are  wanting  ; 
although  we  know  from  Philippians  i.  i  that  this  order 
already  existed  in  Pauline  Churches.  Pastors  (shep- 
herds)— a  title  only  employed  here  by  the  apostle — is 
a  fitting  synonym  for  the  "  bishops"  {i.e.,  overseers)  of 
whom  he  speaks  in  Acts  xx.  28,  Philippians  i.  i,  and 
largely  in  the  epistles  to  Timothy  and  Titus,  whose 
functions  were  spiritual    and    disciplinary   as   well    as 


iv.  7-12.]     THE  MEASURE  OF  THE  GIFT  OF  CHRIST     239 

administrative.  Addressing  the  Ephesian  elders  at 
Miletus  four  years  before,  St  Paul  bade  them  '*  shep- 
herd the  Church  of  God." 

In  I  Peter  v.  i,  2  the  same  charge  is  laid  by  the 
Jewish  apostle  upon  his  "  fellow-elders,"  that  they 
should  "  shepherd  the  flock  of  God,  making  themselves 
examples"  to  it;  Christ  Himself  he  has  previously 
called  ^'Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  souls  "  (i  Pet.  ii.  25). 
The  expression  is  derived  from  the  words  of  Jesus 
recorded  in  John  x.,  concerning  the  true  and  false 
shepherd  of  God's  flock,  and  Himself  the  Good  Shep- 
herd,— words  famihar  and  dear  to  His  disciples. 

The  office  of  teaching,  as  in  I  Timothy  v.  17,  is  con- 
joined with  that  of  shepherding.  From  that  passage 
we  infer  that  the  freedom  of  teaching  so  conspicuous 
in  the  Corinthian  Church  (i  Cor.  xiv.  26,  etc.)  was 
still  recognized.  Teaching  and  ruling  are  not  made 
identical,  nor  inseparable  functions,  any  more  than  in 
Romans  xii.  7,  8  ;  but  they  were  frequently  associated, 
and  hence  are  coupled  together  here. — Of  apostolic 
evangelists  we  have  examples  in  Timothy  and  the 
second  Philip;*  men  outside  the  rank  of  the  apostles, 
but  who,  like  them,  preached  the  gospel  from  place 
to  place.  The  name  apostles  (equivalent  to  our  mis- 
sionaries) served,  in  its  wider  sense,  to  include  ministers 
of  this  class  along  with  those  directly  commissioned 
by  the  Lord  Jesus.f 

The  prophets, X  like  the  apostles  and  evangelists, 
belonged  to  the  Church  at  large,  rather  than  to  one 

*  2  Tim.  iv.  5;   Acts  viii.  26-40,  xxi.  8. 

t  In  Acts  xiv.  4,  14,  Barnabas  and  Paul  are  "  apostles  "  ;  i  Thess. 
ii.  6,  Paul  and  Silas  and  Timothy.  Comp.  Rom.  xvi.  7  ;  2  Cor.  viii. 
23,  xi.  13;  Phil,  ii.  25;  Rev.  ii.  2. 

%  Comp.  ch.  ii.  20,  iii.  5  for  the  association  of  prophets  with  apostlen. 


240  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPFIESIANS. 

locality.  But  their  gift  of  inspiration  did  not  carry 
with  it  the  claim  to  rule  in  the  Church.  This  was  the 
function  of  the  apostles  generally,  and  of  the  pastor- 
bishops,  or  elders,  locally  appointed. 

The  first  three  orders  (apostles,  prophets,  evangelists) 
hnked  Church  to  Church  and  served  the  entire  body ; 
the  last  two  (pastors  and  teachers)  had  charge  of  local 
and  congregational  affairs.  The  apostles  (the  Twelve 
and  Paul),  with  the  prophets,  were  the  founders  of  the 
Church.  Their  distinctive  functions  ceased  when  the 
foundation  was  laid  and  the  deposit  of  revealed  truth 
was  complete.  The  evangelistic  and  pastoral  callings 
remain ;  and  out  of  them  have  sprung  all  the  variety 
of  Christian  ministries  since  exercised.  Evangelists, 
with  apostles  or  missionaries,  bring  new  souls  to  Christ 
and  carry  His  message  into  new  lands.  Pastors  and 
teachers  follow  in  their  train,  tending  the  ingathered 
sheep,  and  labouring  to  make  each  flock  that  they 
shepherd  and  every  single  man  perfect  in  Christ  Jesus. 

Marvellous  were  Christ's  *^  gifts  for  men  "  bestowed 
in  the  apostolic  ministry.  What  a  gift  to  the  Christian 
community,  for  example,  was  Paul  himself!  In  his 
natural  endowments,  so  rich  and  finely  blended,  in 
his  training  and  early  experience,  in  the  supernatural 
mode  of  his  conversion,  everything  wrought  together 
to  give  to  men  in  the  apostle  Paul  a  man  supremely 
fitted  to  be  Christ's  ambassador  to  the  Pagan  world, 
and  for  all  ages  the  "  teacher  of  the  Gentiles  in  faith 
and  truth."  "^  chosen  vessel  unto  me,"  said  the  Lord 
Jesus,  ^'to  bear  my  name." 

Such  a  gift  to  the  world  was  St  Augustine :  a  man 
of  the  most  powerful  intellect  and  will,  master  of  the 
thought  and  life  of  his  time.  Long  an  alien  from  the 
household  of  faith,  he  was  saved  at  last  as  by  miracle. 


iv.  7-12.]     THE  MEASURE  OF  THEi^GIFT  OF  CHRIST.     241 

and  utterly  subdued  to  the  will  of  Christ.  In  the 
awful  crisis  of  the  fifth  century,  when  the  Roman 
empire  was  breaking  up  and  the  very  foundations  of 
life  seemed  to  be  dissolved,  it  was  the  work  of  this 
heroic  man  to  reassert  the  sovereignty  of  grace  and  to 
re-establish  faith  in  the  Divine  order  of  the  world. 

Such  another  gift  to  men  was  Martin  Luther,  the 
captive  of  justifying  grace,  won  from  the  monastery  and 
the  bondage  of  Rome  to  set  Germany  and  Europe  free. 
What  a  soul  of  fire,  what  a  voice  of  power  was  his  !  to 
whose  lips  our  Lord  Christ  set  the  great  trumpet  of 
the  Reformation ;  and  he  blew  a  blast  that  waked  the 
sleeping  peoples  of  the  North,  and  made  the  walls  of 
Babylon  rock  again  to  their  foundation.  Such  a  gift 
to  Scotland  was  John  Knox,  who  from  his  own  soul 
breathed  the  spirit  of  religion  into  the  life  of  a  nation, 
and  gave  it  a  body  and  organic  form  in  which  to  dwell 
and  work  for  centuries. 

Such  a  gift  to  England  was  John  Wesley.  Can  we 
conceive  a  richer  boon  conferred  by  the  Head  of  the 
Church  upon  the  English  race  than  the  raising  up  of 
this  great  evangelist  and  pastor  and  teacher,  at  such 
a  time  as  that  of  his  appearance  ?  Standing  at  the 
distance  of  a  hundred  years,  we  are  able  to  measure 
in  some  degree  the  magnitude  of  this  bestowment.  In 
none  of  the  leaders  and  commanders  whom  Christ  has 
given  to  His  people  was  there  more  signally  manifest 
that  combination  of  faculties,  that  concurrence  of  pro- 
vidences and  adjustment  to  circumstances,  and  that 
transforming  and  attempering  influence  of  grace  in  all 
— the  "  effectual  working  in  the.  measure  of  each  single 
part "  of  the  man  and  his  history,  which  marks  those 
special  gifts  that  Christ  is  wont  to  bestow  upon  His 
people  in  seasons  of  special  emergency  and  need. 

16 


242  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

We  are  passing  into  a  new  age,  such  as  none  of 
these  great  men  dreamed  of,  an  age  as  exigent  and 
perilous  as  any  that  have  gone  before  it.  The 
ascendency  of  physical  science,  the  political  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  masses,  the  universal  spread  of  education, 
the  emancipation  of  critical  thought,  the  gigantic  growth 
of  the  press,  the  enormous  increase  and  aggregation 
of  wealth,  the  multiplication  of  large  cities,  the  world- 
wide facilities  of  intercourse, — these  and  other  causes 
more  subtle  are  rapidly  transforming  human  society. 
Old  barriers  have  disappeared  ;  while  new  difficulties 
are  being  created,  of  a  magnitude  to  overtask  the  faith 
of  the  -  strongest.  The  Church  is  confronted  with 
problems  larger  far  in  their  dimensions  than  those 
our  fathers  knew.  Demands  are  being  made  on  her 
resources  such  as  she  has  never  had  to  meet  before. 
Shall  we  be  equal  to  the  needs  of  the  coming  times  ? 
— Nay,  that  is  not  the  question  ;  but  will  He  ? 

There  is  nothing  new  or  surprising  to  the  Lord 
Jesus  in  the  progress  of  our  times  and  the  develop- 
ments of  modern  thought,  nothing  for  which  He  is 
not  perfectly  prepared.  He  has  taken  their  measure 
long  ere  this,  and  holds  them  within  His  grasp.  The 
government  is  upon  His  shoulders — ^'the  weight  of  all 
this  unintelligible  world " — and  He  can  bear  it  well. 
He  has  gifts  in  store  for  the  twentieth  century,  when 
it  arrives,  as  adequate  as  those  He  bestowed  upon- 
the  first  or  fifth,  upon  the  sixteenth  or  the  eighteenth 
of  our  era.  There  are  Augustines  and  Wesleys  yet 
to  come:  Hidden  in  the  Almighty's  quiver  are  shafts 
as  polished  and  as  keen  as  any  He  iias  used,  which 
He  will  launch  forth  in  the  war  of  the  ages  at  the 
appointed  hour.  The  need,  the  peril,  the  greatness  of 
the  time  will  be  the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ. 


IV.  7- 12. J     THE  MEASURE  OF  THE  GIFT  OF  CHRIST.     243 

There  is  a  danger,  however,  in  waiting  for  great 
leaders  and  in  looking  for  signal  displays  of  Christ's 
power  amongst  men.  His  "  kingdom  comes  not  with 
observation,"  so  that  men  should  say,  Lo  here!  or 
Lo  there  !  It  steals  upon  us  unforeseen  ;  it  is  amongst 
us  before  we  know.  "  We  looked,"  says  Rutherford, 
''  that  He  should  take  the  higher  way  along  the  mount- 
ains ;  and  lo,  He  came  by  the  lower  way  of  the  valleys  !  " 
While  men  listen  to  the  earthquake  and  the  wind 
rending  the  mountains,  a  still,  small  voice  speaks  the 
message  of  God  to  prepared  hearts.  Rarely  can  we 
measure  at  the  first  the  worth  of  Christ's  best  gifts. 
When  the  fruit  appears,  after  long  patience,  the  world 
will  haply  discover  when  and  how  the  seed  was  sown. 
But  not  always  then. 

"The  sower,  passing  onward,  was  not  known; 
And  all  men  reaped  the  harvest  as  their  own." 

Those  who  are  most  ready  to  appraise  their  fellows 
are  constantly  at  fault.  Our  last  may  prove  Christ's 
first;  our  first  His  last!  ''Each  of  us  shall  give 
account  of  himself  to  God  "  :  each  must  answer  for  his 
own  stewardship,  and  the  grace  that  was  given  to  each. 
"  Let  us  not  therefore  judge  one  another  any  more." 
But  let  every  man  see  to  it  that  his  part  in  the  building 
of  God's  temple  is  well  and  faithfully  done.  Soon  the 
fire  will  try  every  man's  work,  of  what  sort  it  is. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE   GROWTH  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

"  Till  we  all  attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  full  know- 
ledge of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  fullgrown  man,  unto  the  measure  of 
the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ :  that  we  may  be  no  more  children, 
tossed  to  and  fro  and  canied  about  with  every  wind  of  doctrine  in 
the  sport  of  men,  in  craftiness,  unto  the  scheme  of  error  ;  but  dealing 
truly,  in  love  may  grow  up  in  all  things  into  Him,  which  is  the  head, 
even  Christ  ;  from  whom  all  the  body  fitly  framed  and  knit  together, 
through  that  which  every  juncture  supplieth,  according  to  the  working 
in  dtie  measure  of  each  several  part,  maketh  the  increase  of  the  body 
unto  the  building  up  of  itself  in  love." — Eph.  iv.  13-16. 

WE  must  spend  a  few  moments  in  unravelling 
this  knotty  paragraph  and  determining  the 
relation  of  its  involved  clauses  to  each  other,  before 
we  can  expound  it.  This  passage  is  enough  to  prove 
St  Paul's  hand  in  the  letter.  No  writer  of  equal 
power  was  ever  so  little  of  a  literary  craftsman.  His 
epistles  read,  as  M.  Renan  says,  like  *^a  rapid  con- 
versation stenographed."  Sometimes,  as  in  several 
places  in  Colossians  ii.,  his  ideas  are  shot  out  in  dis- 
jointed clauses,  hardly  more  continuous  than  short- 
hand notes  ;  often,  as  in  this  epistle,  they  pour  in  a 
full  stream,  sentence  hurrying  after  sentence  and 
phrase  heaped  upon  phrase  with  an  exuberance  that 
bewilders   us.     In  his   spoken  address  the  interpreta- 

244 


iv.  13-16.]       THE   GROWTH  OF  THE   CHURCH.  245 

tion  of  tone  and  gesture,  doubtless,  supplied  the 
syntactical  adjustments  so  often  wanting  in  Paul's 
written  composition. 

The  gifts  pertaining  to  special  office  in  the  Church 
were  bestowed  to  promote  its  corporate  efficiency  and 
to  further  its  general  growth  (vv.  11,  12).  Now,  the 
purpose  of  these  endowments  sets  a  limit  to  their  use. 
"  Christ  gave  apostles,  prophets,"  and  the  rest — "  //'//  we 
all  arrive  at  our  perfect  manhood  and  reach  the  stature 
of  His  fulness."  Such  is  the  connexion  of  verse  13 
with  the  foregoing  context.  The  aim  of  the  Christian 
ministry  is  to  make  itself  superfluous,  to  raise  men 
beyond  its  need.  Knowledge  and  prophesyings, 
apostolates  and  pastorates,  the  missions  of  the  evange- 
list and  the  schools  of  the  teacher  will  one  day  cease ; 
their  work  will  be  done,  their  end  gained,  when  all 
believers  are  brought  "  to  the  unity  of  faith,  to  the 
full  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God."  The  work  of 
Christ's  servants  can  have  no  grander  aim,  no  further 
goal  lying  beyond  this.  Verse  14,  therefore,  does  not 
disclose  an  ulterior  purpose  arising  out  of  that  affirmed 
in  the  previous  sentence ;  it  restates  the  same  purpose. 
To  make  men  of  us  (ver.  13)  and  to  prevent  our 
being  children  (ver.  14)  is  the  identical  object  for 
which  apostles,  prophets,  pastors,  teachers  are  called 
to  office.  The  goal  marked  out  for  all  believers  in 
the  knowledge  and  the  moral  likeness  of  Christ  (ver. 
13),  is  set  up  that  it  may  direct  the  Church's  course 
through  dangers  shunned  and  enemies  vanquished 
(ver.  14)  to  the  attainment  of  her  corporate  perfection 
(vv.  15,  16).  The  whole  thought  of  this  section 
turns  upon  the  idea  of  "  the  perfecting  of  the  saints  " 
in  verse  12.  Verse  16  looks  backward  to  this  ;  verse  J 
looked  forward  to  it. 


246  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

>_ . 1 • 

So  much  for  the  general  construction  of  the 
period.  As  to  its  particular  words  and  phrases,  we 
must  observe  : — 

(i)  The  "perfect  [full-grown]  man  "of  verse  13  is 
the  individual,  not  the  generic  man,  not  "  the  one 
[collective]  new  man"  of  chapter  ii.  15.  The  Greek 
words  for  man  in  these  two  places  differ.*  The 
apostle  proposes  to  the  Christian  ministry  the  end 
that  he  was  himself  pursuing,  viz.,  to  "  present  every 
man  perfect  in  Christ."  t 

(2)  ''  Sleight  of  men "  (A.V.  and  R.V.)  does  not 
seem  to  us  to  express  the  precise  meaning  of  the 
word  so  translated  in  verse  14.  Kiibeia  (from  kubos, 
a  cube,  or  die)  occurs  only  here  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  in  classical  Greek  it  appears  in  its  literal  sense 
of  dice-play,  gambling.  The  interpreters  have  drawn 
from  this  the  idea  of  trickery,  cheating — the  common 
accompaniment  of  gambling.  But  the  kindred  verb 
(to  play  dice,  to  gamble)  has  another  well-established 
use  in  Greek,  namely, 7o  hazard:  this  supplies  for  St 
Paul's  noun  the.  signification  of  sport  or  hazarding^ 
preferred  by  Beza  among  the  older  expositors  and  by 
von  Soden  amongst  the  newest.  In  the  sport  of  men, 
says  von  Soden  :  "  conduct  wanting  in  every  kind  of 
earnestness  and  clear  purpose.  These  men  play  with 
religion,  and  with  the  welfare  of  Christian  souls." 
This    metaphor   accords    admirably    with    that   of  the 

*  Ei's  €va  Kaivov  avdpiairov  {homo),  ch.  ii.  15  ;  similarly  in  iv.  22, 
24 ;  Rom.  vi.  6 ;  i  Cor.  xv.  45,  47,  etc.  Here  els  apbpa  reXeiov 
(vzr);  comp.  i  Cor.  xiii.  ii;  James  iii.  2.  To  call  the  Church  dprjp 
would  be  highly  incongruous,  in  view  of  ch.  v.  23,  etc. ;  comp.  2  Cor. 
xi.  2. 

t  Col.  i.  22,  28,  29;  2  Tim.  ii.  10. 


iv.i3-i6.]       THE   GROWTH  OF  THE  CHURCH.  247 

restless  waves  and  uncertain  winds  *  just  preceding 
it ;  while  it  leads  fittingly  to  the  further  qualification 
"  in  craftiness,"  which  is  almost  an  idle  synonym  after 
*' sleight." 

(3)  Another  rare  word  is  found  in  this  verse,  not 
very  precisely  rendered  as  "wiles"— a  translation  suit- 
ing it  better  in  chapter  vi.  11.  Here  the  noun  is 
singular  in  number :  methodeia.  It  signifies  methodiz- 
ing, reducing  to  a  plan ;  and  then,  in  a  bad  sense, 
scheming,  plotting.  ''Error"  is  thus  personified:  it 
''  schemes,"  just  as  in  2  Thessalonians  ii.  7  it  ''  works." 
Amid  the  restless  speculations  and  the  unscrupulous 
perversions  of  the  gospel  now  disturbing  the  infant 
faith  of  the  Asian  Churches,  the  apostle  saw  the  out- 
line of  a  great  system  of  error  shaping  itself.  There 
was  a  method  in  this  madness.  Unto  the  scheme  of 
^;^;^or— into  the  meshes  of  its  net— those  were  being 
driven  who  yielded  to  the  prevailing  tendencies  of 
speculative  thought.  With  all  its  cross  currents  and 
capricious  movements,  it  was  bearing  steadily  in  one 
direction.  Reckless  pilots  steered  ignorant  souls  this 
way  and  that  over  the  wind-swept  seas  of  religious 
doubt;  but  they  brought  them  at  last  to  the  same 
rocks  and  quicksands. 

(4)  As  the  contrast  between  manhood  and  childhood 
links  verses  13  and  14,  so  it  is  by  the  contrast  of  error 
and  craftiness  with  truth  that  we  pass  from  verse  14  to 
verse  15.  '^Speaking  truth"  insufficiently  renders  the 
opening  word  of  the  latter  verse.     The  ''  dealing  truly  " 


*  For    this   association  of  metaphor,   comp.    Shakespeare  :  Julius 
Ccesar,  Act  V.,  Scene  i  : — 

"Blow,  wind;  swell,  billow;  and  swim,  bark! 
The  storm  is  up  ;  and  all  is  on  the  hazard  !  " 


248  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  the  Revised  margin  is  preferable.  In  Galatians 
iv.  1 6  the  apostle  employs  the  same  verb,  signifying 
not  truth  of  speech  alone,  but  of  deed  and  life  (comp. 
Eph.  V.  9).  The  expression  resembles  that  of  I  John 
iii.  19:  *'We  are  of  the  truth,  and  shall  assure  our 
hearts  before  Him,"  where  truth  and  love  are  found  in 
the  like  union. 

(5)  The  last  difficulty  of  this  kind  we  have  to  deal 
with,  lies  in  the  connexion  of  the  clauses  of  verse  16. 
^'Through  every  joint  of  supply"  is  an  incongruous 
adjunct  to  the  previous  clause,  ^'  fitly  framed  and  knit 
together,"  although  the  rendering  ''joint"  gives  this 
connexion  a  superficial  aptness.  The  apostle's  word 
means  jtificturc  rather  than  jo  int. ^^  The  points  0/ contact 
between  the  members  of  Christ's  body  form  the  channels 
of  supply  through  which  the  entire  frame  receives 
nourishment.  The  clause  ''through  every  juncture  of 
the  supply" — an  expression  somewhat  obscure  at  the 
best — points  forw^ards,  not  backwards.  It  describes 
the  means  by  which  the  Church  of  Christ,  compacted 
in  its  general  framework  by  those  larger  ligatures 
which  its  ministry  furnishes  (vv.  1 1,  12),  builds  up  its 
inward  life, — through  a  communion  wherein  "  each 
single  part"  of  the  body  shares,  and  every  tie  that 
binds  one  Christian  soul  to  another  serves  to  nourish 
the  common  life  of  grace.  We  may  paraphrase  the 
sentence  thus :  "  Drawing  its  Ufe  from  Christ,  the 
entire  body  knit  together  in  a  well-compacted  frame, 
makes  use  of  every  link  that  unites  its  members  and 
of  each  particular  member  in  his  place  to   contribute 

*  -Vulgate  :  per  onnem  jjincturatn  mini  strati onis.  St  Paul's  word 
here  is  Sto.  Trd(r7]s  atpijs,  through  every  touching.  See  Lightfoot's  valuable 
note  on  the  medical  and  philosophical  use  of  the  word  by  Greek  authors, 
in  his  Commentary  on  Colossians  (ii.  19). 


iv.  13-16.]        THE   GROWTH  OF  THE   CHURCH.  249 

to  its  sustenance,  thus  building  itself  up  in  love  ever- 
more." 

These  difficult  verses  unfold  to  us  three  main  con- 
ceptions :  77z^  goal  of  the  Church's  life  (ver.  13),  the 
malady  which  arrests  its  development  (ver.  14),  and  the 
means  and  conditions  of  its  growth  (vv.  15,  16). 

I.  The  mark  at  which  the  Church  has  to  arrive  is 
set  forth,  in  harmony  with  the  tenor  of  the  epistle, 
in  a  twofold  way,— in  its  collective  and  its  individual 
aspects.  We  must  all  "unitedly  attain  the  oneness 
of  the  faith  and  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God"; 
and  we  must  attain,  each  of  us,  "a  perfect  manhood,' 
the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ." 

The  ''one  faith"  of  the  Church's  foundation  (ver.  5) 
is,  at  the  same  time,  its  end  and  goal.  The  final  unity 
will  be  the  unfolding  of  the  primal  unity;  the  implicit 
will  become  explicit ;  the  germ  will  be  reproduced  in 
the  developed  organism.  "The  faith"  is  still,  in  St 
Paul,  the/^^5  qua  credimus,  not  quam  credimus ;  it  is 
the  living  faith  of  all  hearts  in  the  same  Christ  and 
gospel*  When  ''we  all"  believe  heartily  and  under- 
standingly  in  "the  word  of  truth,  the  gospel  of  our 
salvation,"  the  goal  will  be  in  sight.  All  our  defects 
are,  at  the  bottom,  deficiencies  of  faith.  We  fail  to 
apprehend  and  appropriate  the  fulness  of  God  in  Christ. 
Faith  is  the  essence  of  the  heart's  life  :  it  forms  the 
common  consciousness  of  the  body  of  Christ. 

While  faith  is  the  central  organ  of  the  Church's  life, 
the  Son  of  God  is  its  central  object.  The  dangers 
as^aihng  the  Church  and  the  divisions  threatening  its 

*  Comp.  ch.  i.  13:  <'in  whom  you  also  [Gentiles,  along  with  us 
Jews]  found  hope";  also  Rom.  iii.  29,  30;  Tit.  i.  4,  "my  true  child 
according  to  a  common  faith" 


2SO  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

unity,,  touched  His  Person ;  and  whatever  touches  the 
Head,  vitally  affects  the  health  of  the  body  and  the 
well-being  of  every  member  in  it.  Many  had  believed 
in  Jesus  as  the  Christ  and  received  blessing  from  Him, 
whose  knowledge  of  Him  as  the  Son  of  God  was  defec- 
tive. This  ignorance  exposed  their  faith  to  perversion 
by  the  plausible  errors  circulating  in  the  Churches 
of  Asia  Minor.*  The  haze  of  speculation  dimmed 
His  glory  and  distorted  His  image.  Dazzled  by  the 
"  philosophy  and  empty  deceit "  of  specious  talkers, 
these  half-instructed  believers  formed*  erroneous  or 
uncertain  views  of  Christ.  And  a  divided  Christ 
makes  a  divided  Church.  We  may  hold  divergent 
opinions  upon  many  points  of  doctrine — in  regard  to 
Church  order  and  the  Sacraments,  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  the  future  judgement,  in  regard  to  the  mode 
and  limits  of  inspiration,  in  regard  to  the  dialect  and 
expression  of  our  spiritual  life — and  yet  retain,  not- 
withstanding, a  large  measure  of  cordial  unity  and  find 
ourselves  able  to  co-operate  with  each  other  for  many 
Christian  purposes.  But  when  our  difference  concerns 
the  Person  of  Christ,  it  is  felt  at  once  to  be  fundamental. 
There  is  a  gulf  between  those  who  worship  and  those 
who  do  not  worship  the  Son  of  God. 

^*  Whosoever  shall  confess  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of 
God,  God  abideth  in  him  and  he  in  God  "  (i  John  iv.  15). 
This  is  the  touchstone  of  catholic  truth  that  the  apostles 
have  laid  down ;  and  by  this  we  must  hold  fast.  The 
kingship  of  the  Lord  Jesus  is  the  rallying-point  of 
Christendom.  In  His  name  we  set  up  our  banners. 
There  are  a  thousand  differences  we  can  afford  to  sink 
and  quarrels  we  may  well  forget,  if  our  hearts  are  one 

*  See  the  connexion  of  thought  in  Col.  ii.  S-io,  18,  19. 


iv.  13-16.]        THE   GROWTH  OF  THE   CHURCH.  251 

towards  Him.  Let  me  meet  a  man  of  any  sect  or 
country,  who  loves  and  worships  my  Lord  Christ  with 
all  his  mind  and  strength,  he  is  my  brother ;  and  who 
shall  forbid  us  "with  one  mind  and  one  mouth  to 
glorify  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ "  ? 
It  is  nothing  but  our  ignorance  of  Him,  and  of  each 
other,  that  prevents  us  doing  this  already.  Let  us  set 
ourselves  again  to  the  study  of  Christ.  Let  us  strive 
*'  all  of  us  "  to  "  attain  to  the  full  knowledge  of  the  Son 
of  God  " ;  it  is  the  way  to  reunion.  As  we  approach 
the  central  revelation,  and  the  glory  of  Christ  who  is 
the  image  of  God  shines  in  its  original  brightness  upon 
our  hearts,  prejudices  will  melt  away ;  the  opinions  and 
interests  and  sentiments  that  divide  us  will  be  lost 
in  the  transcendent  and  absorbing  vision  of  the  one 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

\  "  Names  and  sects  and  parties  fall : 

Thou,  O  Christ,  art  all  in  all  !  " 

The  second  and  third  unto  of  verse  13  are  parallel 
with  the  first,  and  with  each  other.  A  truer  faith 
and  better  knowledge  of  Christ  uniting  believers  to 
each  other,  at  the  same  time  develope  in  each  of 
them  a  riper  character.  Jesus  Christ  was  the  '^  per- 
fect man."  In  Him  our  nature  attained,  without 
the  least  flaw  or  failure,  its  true  end, — which  is  to 
glorify  God.  In  His  fulness  the  plenitude  of  God 
is  embodied  ;  it  is  made  human,  and  attainable  to 
faith.  In  Jesus  Christ  humanity  rose  to  its  ideal 
stature ;  and  we  see  what  is  the  proper  level  of  our 
nature,  the  dignity  and  worth  to  which  we  have  to  rise. 
We  are  "  predestinated  to  be  conformed  to  the  image 
of  God's  Son."  All  the  many  brethren  of  Jesus 
measure  themselves  against  the  stature  of  the   First- 


252  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


born  ;  and  they  will  have  to  say  to  the  end  with  St 
Paul :  "  Not  as  though  I  had  attained,  either  were 
already  perfect.  I  follow  after ;  I  press  towards  the 
mark."  A  true  heart  that  has  seen  perfection,  will 
never  rest  short  of  it. 

"  Till  we  arrive — till  we  all  arrive  "  at  this,  the  work 
of  the  Christian  ministry  is  incomplete.  Teachers 
must  still  school  us,  pastors  shepherd  us,  evangelists 
mission  us.  There  is  work  enough  and  to  spare  for 
them  all — and  will  be,  to  all  appearance,  for  many  a 
generation  to  come.  The  goal  of  the  regenerate  life 
is  never  absolutely  won  ;  it  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 
But  there  is  to  be  a  constant  approximation  to  it,  both 
in  the  individual  believer  and  in  the  body  of  Christ's 
people.  And  a  time  is  coming  when  that  goal  will  be 
practically  attained,  so  far  as  earthly  conditions  allow. 
The  Church  after  long  strife  will  be  reunited,  after  long 
trial  will  be  perfected  ;  and  Christ  will  "  present  her 
to  Himself"  a  bride  worthy  of  her  Lord,  "without 
spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing."  Then  this  world 
will  have  had  its  use,  and  will  give  place  to  the  new 
heavens  and  earth. 

II.  The  goal  that  the  apostle  marked  out,  did  not 
appear  to  him  to  be  in  immediate  prospect.  The 
childishness  of  so  many  Christian  believers  stood  in 
the  way  of  its  attainment.  In  this  condition  they  were 
exposed  to  the  seductions  of  error,  and  ready  to  be 
driven  this  way  and  that  by  the  evil  influences  active 
in  the  world  of  thought  around  them.  So  long  as  the 
Chiirch  contains  a  number  of  unstable  souls,  so  long 
she  will  remain  subject  to  strife  and  corruption. 
When  he  says  in  verse  14,  "  that  we  may  be  no  longer 
children  tossed  to  and  fro,"  etc.,  this  implies  that  many 
Christian  believers  at  that  time  were  of  this  childish 


iv.  13-16.]        THE   GROWTH  OF  THE   CHURCH.  253 

sort,  and  were  being  so  distracted  and  misled.  The 
apostle  writes  on  purpose  to  instruct  these  ''babes" 
and  to  raise  them  to  a  more  manly  style  of  Christian 
thought  and  life.* 

It  is  a  grievous  thing  to  a  minister  of  Christ  to  see 
those  who  for  the  time  ought  to  be  teachers,  fit  for 
the  Church's  strong  meat  and  the  harder  tasks  of  her 
service,  remaining  still  infantile  in  their  condition, 
needing  to  be  nursed  and  humoured,  narrow  in  their 
views  of  truth,  petty  and  personal  in  their  aims, 
wanting  in  all  generous  feeling  and  exalted  thought. 
Some  men,  like  St  Paul  himself,  advance  from  the 
beginning  to  a  settled  faith,  to  a  large  intelligence  and 
fl  full  and  manly  consecration  to  God.  Others  remain 
''babes  in  Christ"  to  the  end.  Their  souls  live,  but 
never  thrive.  They  suffer  from  every  change  in  the 
moral  atmosphere,  from  every  new  wind  of  doctrine. 
These  invalids  are  objects  full  of  interest  to  the  moral 
pathologist  ;  they  are  marked  not  unfrequently  by  fine 
and  delicate  qualities.  But  they  are  a'  constant  anxiety 
to  the  Church.  Till  they  grow  into  something  more 
robust  they  must  remain  to  crowd  the  Church's 
nursery,  instead  of  taking  part  in  her  battle  like  brave 
and  strenuous  men. 

The  appearance  of  false  doctrine  in  the  Asian 
Churches  made  their  undeveloped  condition  a  matter  for 
peculiar  apprehension  to  the  apostle.  The  Colossian 
heresy,  for  example,  with  which  he  is  dealing  at  this 
present  moment,  would  have  no  attraction  for  ripe  and 
settled  Christians.  But  such  a  "  scheme  of  error  "  was 
exactly  suited  to  catch  men  with  a  certain  tincture  of 
philosophy    and    in    general    sympathy    with    current 

*  Compare   i   Cor.  ii.  6,  iii.  1-3,   xiv.    20,   xvi.    13;   Gal.  iv.    19; 
iJeb.  V.  11-14. 


2^4  fHE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

thought,  who  had  embraced  Christianity  under  some 
vague  sense  of  its  satisfaction  for  their  spiritual  needs, 
but  without  an  intelHgent  grasp  of  its  principles  or 
a  thorough  experience  of  its  power. 

St  Paul  speaks  of  ''  every  wind  of  the  doctrine," 
having  in  his  mind  a  more  or  less  definite  form  of 
erroneous  teaching,  a  certain  *'  plan  of  error."  Reading 
this  verse  in  the  light  of  the  companion  letter  to 
Colossae  and  the  letters  addressed  to  Timothy  when 
at  Ephesus  a  few  years  later,  we  can  understand  its 
significance.  We  can  watch  the  storm  that  was  rising 
in  the  Graeco-Asiatic  Churches.  The  characteristics 
of  early  Gnosticism  are  well  defined  in  the  miniature 
picture  of  verse  14.  We  note,  in  the  first  place,  its 
protean  and  capricious  form,  half  Judaistic,  half  philo- 
sophical— ascetic  in  one  direction,  libertine  in  another  : 
"  tossed  by  the  waves,  and  carried  about  with  every 
wind."  In  the  next  place,  its  intellectual  spirit, — 
that  of  a  loose  and  reckless  speculation :  "  in  the 
hazarding  of  men," — not  in  the  abiding  truth  of  God. 
Morally,  it  was  vitiated  by  "craftiness."  And  in  its 
issue  and  result,  this  new  teaching  was  leading  "  to 
the  scheme  of  error"  which  the  apostle  four  years 
ago  had  sorrowfully  predicted,  in  bidding  farewell 
to  the  Ephesian  elders  at  Miletus  (Acts  xx.).  This 
scheme  was  no  other  than  the  gigantic  Gnostic  system, 
which  devastated  the  Eastern  Churches  and  inflicted 
deep  and  lasting  wounds  upon  them. 

The  struggle  with  legalism  was  now  over  and  past, 
at  least  in  its  critical  phase.  The  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  had  won  the  battle  with  Judaism  and  saved 
the  Church  in  its  first  great  conflict.  But-  another 
strife  is  impending  (comp.  vi.  10)  ;  a  most  pernicious 
error    has   made    its   appearance   within   the    Church 


IV.  I3-I6.]       THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  CHVRCH.  a^S 

itself.  St  Paul  was  not  to  see  more  than  the  com- 
mencement of  the  new  movement,  which  took  two 
generations  to  gather  its  full  force;  but  he  had  a 
true  prophetic  insight,  and  he  saw  that  the  strength 
of  the  Church  in  the  coming  day  of  trial  lay  in  the 
depth  and  reality  of  her  knowledge  of  the  Son  of 
God. 

At  every  crisis  in  human  thought  there  emerges 
some  prevailing  method  of  truth,  or  of  error,  the 
resultant  of  current  tendencies,  which  unites  the 
suffrages  of  a  large  body  of  thinkers  and  claims  to 
embody  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Such  a  method  of  error 
our  own  age  has  produced  as  the  outcome  of  the 
anti-Christian  speculation  of  modern  times,  in  the 
doctrines  current  under  the  names  of  Positivism,  Secu- 
larism, or  Agnosticism.  While  the  Gnosticism  of  the 
early  ages  asserted  the  infinite  distance  of  God  from 
the  world  and  the  intrinsic  evil  of  matter,  modern 
Agnosticism  removes  God  still  further  from  us,  beyond 
the  reach  of  thought,  and  leaves  us  with  material  nature 
as  the  one  positive  and  accessible  reality,  as  the  basis 
of  life  and  law.  Faith  and  knowledge  of  the  Son  of 
God  it  banishes  as  dreams  of  our  childhood.  The 
supernatural,  it  tells  us,  is  an  illusion  ;  and  we  must 
resign  ourselves  to  be  once  more  without  God  in  the 
world  and  without  hope  beyond  death. 

This  materiaHstic  philosophy  gathers  to  a  head  the 
unbelief  of  the  century.  It  is  the  living  antagonist  of 
Divine  revelation.  It  supplies  the  appointed  trial  of 
faith  for  educated  men  of  our  generation,  and  the  test 
of  the  intellectual  vigour  and  manhood  of  the  Church. 

III.  In  the  midst  of  the  changing  perils  and  long 
delays  of  her  history,  the  Church  is  called  evermore 
to  press  towards  the  mark  of  her  calling.     The  con- 


256  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

ditions  on  which  her  progress  depends  are  summed  up 
in  verses  15  and  16. 

To  the  craft  of  false  teachers  St  Paul  would  have  his 
Churches  oppose  the  weapons  only  of  truth  and  love. 
^'Holding  the  truth  in  love,"  they  will  "grow  up  in  all 
things  into  Christ."  Sincere  belie  vers,,  heartily  devoted 
to  Christ,  will  not  fall  into  fatal  error.  A  healthy  life 
instinctively  repels  disease.  They  "  have  an  anointing 
from  the  Holy  One  "  which  is  their  protection  (i  John 
ii.  20-29).  ^^  ^^1  that  belongs  to  godHness  and  a  noble 
manhood,  such  natures  will  expand  ;  temptation  and 
the  assaults  of  error  stimulate  rather  than  arrest  their 
growth.  And  with  the  growth  and  ripening  in  her 
fellowshipiof  such  men  of  God,  the  whole  Church  grows. 

Ne:Kt  to  the  moral  condition  lies  the  spiritual  con- 
dition of  advancement, — viz.,  the  full  recognition  of  the 
supremacy  and  sufficiency  of  Christ.  Christ  assumes 
here  two  opposite  relations  to  the  members  of  His 
body.  He  is  the  Head  into  (or  unto)  which  we  grow 
in  all  things ;  but  at  the  same  time,  from  whom  all  the 
body  derives  its  increase  (ver.  16).  He  is  the  perfect 
ideal  for  us  each  ;  He  is  the  common  source  of  life  and 
progress  for  us  all.  In  our  individual  efforts  after 
holiness  and  knowledge,  in  our  personal  aspirations  and 
struggles,  Jesus  Christ  is  our  model,  our  constant  aim : 
we  *^grow  into  Him"  (ver.  15).  But  as  we  learn  to 
live  for  others,  as  we  merge  our  own  aims  in  the  life 
of  the  Church  and  of  humanity  we  feel,  even  more 
deeply  than  our  personal  needs  had  made  us  do,  our 
dependence  upon  Him.  We  see  that  the  forces  which 
are  at  work  to  raise  mankind,  to  stay  the  strifes  and 
heal  the  wounds  of  humanity,  emanate  from  the  living 
Christ  (ver.  16).  He  is  the  head  of  the  Church  and 
the  heart  of  the  world. 


iv.  13-16.]        THE   GROWTH  OF  THE   CHURCH.  2s7 


The  third,  practical  condition  of  Church  growth  is 
brought  out  by  the  closing  words  of  the  paragraph. 
It  is  organization  :  ''  all  the  body  fitly  framed  [comp.  ii. 
2i]  and  knit  together."  Each  local  ccclcsia,  or  assembly 
of  saints,  will  have  its  stated  officers,  its  regulated  and 
seemly  order  in  worship  and  in  work.  And  within  this 
fit  frame,  there  must  be  the  warm  union  of  hearts,  the 
frank  exchange  of  thought  and  feeling,  the  brotherly 
counsel  in  all  things  touching  the  kingdom  of  God,  by 
which  Christian  men  in  each  place  of  their  assembling 
are  "knit  together."  From  these  local  and  congre- 
gational centres,  the  Christian  fellowship  spreads  out  its 
arms  to  embrace  all  that  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

A  building  or  a  machine  is  fitted  together  by  the 
adjustment  of  its  parts.  A  body  needs,  besides  this 
mechanical  construction,  a  pervasive  life,  a  sympathetic 
force  knitting  it  together  :  "  knit  together  in  love,"  the 
apostle  says  in  Colossians  ii.  2  ;  and  so  it  is  "  in  love  " 
that  this  "  body  builds  up  itself."  The  tense  of  the 
participles  in  the  first  part  of  verse  i6  is  present  (con- 
tinuous) ;  we  see  a  body  in  process  of  incorporation, 
whose  several  organs,  imperfectly  developed  and  imper- 
fectly co-operant,  are  increasingly  drawn  to  each  other 
and  bound  more  firmly  in  one  as  each  becomes  more 
complete  in  itself  The  perfect  Christian  and  the 
perfect  Church  are  taking  shape  at  once.  Each  of  them 
requires  the  other  for  its  due  realization. 

The  rest  of  the  sentence,  following  the  comma  that 
we  place  at  "  knit  together,"  has  its  parallel  in  Colos- 
sians ii.  19:  "All  the  body,  through  its  junctures  and 
bands  being  supplied  and  knit  together,  increaseth  with 
the  increase  of  God."  According  to  St  Paul's  ph}^- 
siology,  the  ^^  bands "  knit  the  body  together,  but  the 
"junctures"  are  its  means  of  supply.     Each  point  of 


258  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


contact  is  a  means  of  nourishment  to  the  frame.  In 
touch  with  each  other,  Christians  communicate  the  Hfe 
flowing  from  the  common  Head.  The  apostle  would 
make  Christian  intercourse  a  universal  means  of  grace. 
No  two  Christian  men  should  meet  anywhere,  upon  any 
business,  without  themselves  and  the  whole  Church 
being  the  better  for  it. 

**  Wherever  two  or  three  are  met  together  in  my 
name,"  said  Jesus,  ''  there  am  I  in  the  midst."  In  the 
multitude  of  these  obscure  and  humble  meetings  of 
brethren  who  love  each  other  for  Christ's  sake,  is  the 
grace  suppHed,-  the  love  diffused  abroad,  by  which  the 
Church  lives  and  thrives.  The  vitality  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  does  not  depend  so  much  upon  the  large  and 
visible  features  of  its  construction — upon  Synods  and 
Conferences,  upon  Bishops  and  Presbyteries  and  the 
like,  influential  and  venerable  as  these  authorities  may 
be  ;  but  upon  the  spiritual  intercourse  that  goes  on 
amongst  the  body  of  its  people.  "  Each  several  part" 
of  Christ's  great  body,  "  according  to  the  measure  "  of 
its  capacity,  is  required  to  receive  and  to  transmit  the 
common  grace. 

However  defective  in  other  points  of  organization, 
the  society  in  which  this  takes  place  fulfils  the  office  of 
an  ecclesiastical  body.  It  will  grow  into  the  fulness 
of  Christ  ;  it  ''  builds  up  itself  in  love."  The  primary 
condition  of  Church  health  and  progress  is  that  there 
shall  be  an  unobstructed  flow  of  the  life  of  grace  from 
point  to  point  through  the  tissues  and  substance  of 
the  entire  frame. 


ON  CHRISTIAN  MORALS. 
Chapter  iv.    17 — v.   21. 


«59 


'Ev  KaivoT-qri   'Ccorj^  TrepLTraT-qacofiev—Rou.  vi.  4. 


260 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

THE   WALK  OF  THE   GENTILES. 

"This  I  say,  therefore,  and  testify  in  the  Lord,  that  ye  no  longer 
walk  as  the  Gentiles  also  walk,  in  the  vanity  of  their  mind,  being 
darkened  in  their  understanding,  alienated  from  the  life  of  God  because 
of  the  ignorance  that  is  in  them,  because  of  the  hardening  of  their 
heart ;  who  being  past  feeling  gave  themselves  up  to  lasciviousness,  to 
work  all  uncleanness  with  greediness." — Eph.  iv.  17-19. 

CHRIST  has  called  into  existence  and  formed 
around  Him  already  a  new  world.  Those  who 
are  members  of  His  body,  are  brought  into  another 
order  of  being  from  that  to  which  they  had  formerly 
belonged.  They  have  therefore  to  walk  in  quite 
another  way — "  no  longer  as  the  Gentiles."  St  Paul 
does  not  say  "as  the  other  Gentiles"  (A.V.) ;  for  his 
readers,  though  Gentiles  by  birth  (ii.  11),  are  now  of 
the  household  of  faith  and  the  city  of  God.  They 
hold  the  franchise  of  the  "  cohimonwealth  of  Israel." 
As  at  a  later  time  the  apostle  John  in  his  Gospel, 
though  a  born  Jew,  yet  from  the  standpoint  of  the  new 
Israel  writes  of  "  the  Jews  "  as  a  distant  and  alien 
people,  so  St  Paul  distinguishes  his  readers  from  "  the 
Gentiles  "  who  were  their  natural  kindred. 

When  he  ''testifies,"  with  a  pointed  emphasis,  ''that 
you  no  longer  walk  as  do  indeed  the  Gentiles,"  and 
when  in  verse  20  he  exclaims,  "  But  you  did  not  thus 

261 


262  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

learn  the  Christ,"  it  appears  that  there  were  those 
bearing  Christ's  name  and  professing  to  have  learnt  of 
Him  who  did  thus  walk.  This,  indeed,. he  expressly 
asserts  in  writing  to  the  Philippians  (ch.  iii.  i8,  19)  : 
"  Many  walk,  of  whom  I  told  you  oftentimes,  and  now 
tell  you  even  weeping, — the  enemies  of  the  cross  of 
Christ;  whose  god  is  their  belly,  and  their  glory  in 
their  shame,  who  mind  earthly  things."  We  cannot 
but  associate  this  warning  with  the  apprehension 
expressed  in  verse  14  above.  The  reckless  and  un- 
scrupulous teachers  against  whose  seductions  the 
apostle  guards  the  infant  Churches  of  Asia  Minor, 
tampered  with  the  morals  as  well  as  with  the  faith  of 
their  disciples,  and  were  drawing  them  back  insidiously 
to  their  former  habits  of  life.* 

The  connexion  between  the  foregoing  part  of  this 
chapter  and  that  on  which  we  now  enter,  lies  in  the 
relation  of  the  new  life  of  the  Christian  believer  to  the 
new  community  which  he  has  entered.  The  old  world 
of  Gentile  society  had  formed  the  ''old  man"  as  he  then 
existed,  the  product  of  centuries  of  debasing  idolatry. 
But  in  Christ  that  world  is  abolished,  and  a  "  new  man  " 
is  born.  The  world  in  which  the  Asian  Christians  once 
Hved  as  "Gentiles  in  the  flesh,"  is  dead  to  them.f 
They  are  partakers  of  the  regenerate  humanity  con- 
stituted in  Jesus  Christ.  From  this  idea  the  apostle 
deduces  the  ethical  doctrine  of  the  following  paragraphs. 
His  ideal  "  new  man  "  is  no  mere  ego,  devoted  to  his 


*  "The  persons  here  denounced,"  says  Lightfoot  on  Phil.  iii.  18, 
"are  not  the  Judaizing  teachers,  but  the  antinomian  reactionists.  .  .  . 
The  stress  of  Paul's  grief  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  degraded  the  true 
doctrine  of  liberty,  so  as  to  minister  to  their  profligate  and  worldly 
living."     Comp.  I  Peter  iv.  3,  4 ;  2  Peter  ii.  18-22. 

t  Comp.  Col.  ii.  20 — iii.  4 ;  Gal.  vi.  14,  15. 


iv.  17-19.]         THE   WALK  OF  THE   GENTHES.  263 


personal  perfection ;  he  is  part  and  parcel  of  the 
redeemed  society  of  men  ;  his  virtues  are  those  of  a 
member  of  the  Christian  order  and  commonwealth. 

The  representation  given  of  Gentile  life  in  the  three 
verses  before  us  is  highly  condensed  and  pungent.  It 
is  from  the  same  hand  as  the  lurid  picture  of  Romans 
i.  18-32.  While  this  delineation  is  comparatively  brief 
and  cursory,  it  carries  the  analysis  in  some  respects 
deeper  than  does  that  memorable  passage.  We  may 
distinguish  the  main  features  of  the  description,  as  they 
bring  into  view  in  turn  the  mental,  spiritual,  and  moral 
characteristics  of  the  existing.  Paganism.  Man's  intel- 
lect was  confounded  ;  religion  was  dead  ;  profligacy  was 
flagrant  and  shameless. 

I.  ''The  Gentiles  walk,"  the  apostle  says,  "in  vanity 
of  their  mind " — with  reason  frustrate  and  impotent ; 
"  being  darkened  in  their  understanding  " — with  no  clear 
or  settled  principles,  no  sound  theory  of  life.  Similarly, 
he  wrote  in  Romans  i.  21:  "They  were  frustrated 
in  their  reasonings,  and  their  senseless  heart  was 
darkened."  But  here  he  seems  to  trace  the  futility  further 
back,  beneath  the  "  reasonings  "  to  the  "  reason  "  (nous) 
itself.  The  Gentile  mind  was  deranged  at  its  founda- 
tion. Reason  seemed  to  have  suffered  a  paralysis. 
Man  has.  forfeited  his  claim  to  be  a  rational  creature, 
when  he  worships  objects  so  degraded  as  the  heathen 
gods,  when  he  practises  vices  so  detestable  and 
ruinous. 

The  men  of  intellect,  who  held  themselves  aloof  from 
popular  beliefs,  for  the  most  part  confessed  that  their 
philosophies  were  speculative  and  futile,  that  certainty 
in  the  greatest  and  most  serious  matters  was  unattain- 
able.    Pilate's  question,  ''  What  is  truth  ?  " — no  jesting 


264  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

question  surely — passed  from  lip  to  lip  and  from  one 
school  of  thought  to  another,  without  an  answer.  Five 
centuries  before  this  time  the  human  intellect  had  a 
riiarvellous  awakening.  The  art  and  philosophy  of 
Greece  sprang  into  their  glorious  life,  like  Athene  born 
from  the  head  of  Zeus,  full-grown  and  in  shining 
armour.  With  such  leaders  as  Pericles  and  Phidias, 
as  Sophocles  and  Plato,  it  seemed  as  though  nothing 
was  impossible  to  the  mind  of  man.  At  last  the  genius 
of  our  race  had  blossomed ;  rich  and  golden  fruit  would 
surely  follow,  to  be  gathered  from  the  tree  of  life.  But 
the  blossoms  fell,  and  the  fruit  proved  as  rottenness. 
Grecian  art  had  sunk  into  a  meretricious  skill ;  poetry 
was  little  more  than  a  trick  of  words  ;  philosophy,  a 
wrangHng  of  the  schools.  Rome  towered  in  the  majesty 
of  her  arms  and  laws  above  the  faded  glory  of  Greece. 
She  promised  a  more  practical  and  sober  ideal,  a  rule 
of  world-wide  justice  and  peace  and  material  plenty. 
But  this  dream  vanished,  like  the  other.  The  age  of 
the  Caesars  was  an  age  of  disillusion.  Scepticism  and 
cynicism,  disbelief  in  goodness,  despair  of  the  future 
possessed  men's  minds.  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  old 
and  new  Academics,  Peripatetics  and  Pythagoreans 
disputed  the  palm  of  wisdom  in  mere  strife  of  words. 
Few  of  them  possessed  any  earnest  faith  in  their  own 
systems.  The  one  craving  of  Athens  and  the  learned 
was  ''  to  hear  some  new  thing,"  for  of  the  old  things 
all  thinking  men  were  weary.  Only  rhetoric  and 
scepticism  flourished.  Reason  had  built  up  her  noblest 
constructions  as  if  in  sport,  to  pull  them  down  again. 
'^  On  the  whole,  this  last  period  of  Greek  philosophy, 
extending  into  the  Christian  era,  bore  the  marks  of 
intellectual  exhaustion  and  impoverishment,  and  of 
despair  in  the  solution  of  its  high  problem"  (Dollinger). 


iv.  17-19.]         THE    WALK   OF   THE   GENTILES.  265 

The  world  itself  admitted  the  apostle's  reproach  that 
"  by  wisdom  it  knew  not  God."  It  knew  nothing, 
therefore,  to  sure  purpose,  nothing  that  availed  to 
satisfy  or  save  it. 

Our  own  age,  it  may  be  said,  possesses  a  philo- 
sophic method  unknown  to  the  ancient  world.  The 
old  metaphysical  systems  failed  ;  but  we  have  relaid 
the  foundations  of  life  and  thought  upon  the  solid 
ground  of  nature.  Modern  culture  rests  upon  a  basis 
of  positive  and  demonstrated  knowledge,  whose  value 
is  independent  of  religious  belief.  Scientific  discovery 
has  put  us  in  command  of  material  forces  that  secure 
the  race  against  any  such  relapse  as  that  which  took 
place  in  the  overthrow  of  the  Grseco-Roman  civiliza- 
tion. Pessimism  answers  these  pretensions  made  for 
physical  science  by  her  idolaters.  Pessimism  is  the 
nemesis  of  irreligious  thought.  It  creeps  like  a  slow 
palsy  over  the  highest  and  ablest  minds  that  reject  the 
Christian  hope.  What  avails  it  to  yoke  steam  to  our 
chariot,  if  black  care  still  sits  behind  the  rider  ?  to 
wing  our  thoughts  with  the  lightning,  if  those  thoughts 
are  no  happier  or  worthier  than  before  ? 

^'Civilization  contains  within  itself  the  elements  of  a 
fresh  servitude.  Man  conquers  the  powers  of  nature, 
and  becomes  in  turn  their  slave  "  (F.  W.  Robertson). 
Poverty  grows  gaunt  and  desperate  by  the  side  of 
lavish  wealth.  A  new  barbarism  is  bred  in  what 
science  grimly  calls  the  proletariatey  a.  barbarism  more 
\icious  and  dangerous  than  the  old,  that  is  generated 
by  the  inhuman  conditions  of  life  under  the  existing 
regime  of  industrial  science. 

Education  gives  man  quickness  of  wit  and  new  capa- 
city for  evil  or  good  ;  culture  makes  him  more  sensitive  ; 
refinement  more  delicate   in  his    virtues   or  his  vices. 


266  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


But  there  is  no  tendency  in  these  forces  as  we  see  them 
now  in  operation,  any  more  than  in  the  classical  disci- 
pline, to  make  nobler  or  better  men.  Secular  know- 
ledge supplies  nothing  to  bind  society  together,  no  force 
to  tame  the  selfish  passions,  to  guard  the  moral  interests 
of  mankind.  Science  has  given  an  immense  impetus  to 
the  forces  acting  on  civilized  men  ;  it  cannot  change  or 
elevate  their  character.  It  puts  new  and  potent  instru- 
ments into  our  hands  ;  but  whether  those  instruments 
shall  be  tools  to  build  the  city  of  God  or  weapons,  for 
its  destruction,  is  determined  by  the  spirit  of  the 
wielders.  In  the  midst  of  his  splendid  machinery, 
master  of  the  planet's  wealth  and  lord  of  nature's  forces, 
the  civilized  man  at  the  end  of  this  boastful  century 
stands  with  a  dull  and  empty  heart — without  God. 
Poor  creature,  he  wants  to  know  whether  ''  life  is 
worth  living  "  !  He  has  gained  the  world,  but  lost  his 
soul. 

In  vanity  of  mind  and  darkness  of  reasoning  men 
stumble  onwards  to  the  end  of  life,  to  the  end  of  time. 
The  world's  wisdom  and  the  lessons  of  its  history  give 
no  hope  of  any  real  advance  from  darkness  to  light 
until,  as  Plato  said,  ''  We  are  able  more  safely  and 
securely  to  make  our  journey,  borne  on  some  firmer 
vehicle,  on  some  Divine  word."  *  Such  a  vehicle  those 
who  beheve  in  Christ  have  found  in  His  teaching.  The 
moral  progress  of  the  Christian  ages  is  due  to  its 
guidance.  And  that  moral  progress  has  created  the 
conditions  and  given  the  stimulus  to  which  our  material 
and  scientific  progress  is  due.  Spiritual  life  gives 
permanence  and  value  to  all  man's  acquisitions.  Both 
of  this  world  and  of  that  to  come  ''godliness  holds  the 

*  PhiEdo  :  §  XXXV. 


iv.  17-19.]         THE   WALK   OF   THE   GENTHES.  267 

promise."  We  are  only  beginning  to  learn  how  much 
was  meant  when  Jesus  Christ  announced  Himself  as 
**  the  light  of  the  world."  He  brought  into  the  world 
a  light  which  was  to  shine  through  all  the  realms  of 
human  life, 

n.  The  delusion  of  mind  in  which  the  nations  walked, 
resulted  in  a  settled  state  of  estrangement  from  God. 
They  were  '*  alienated  from  the  life  of  God." 

"Alienated  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,"  St 
Paul  said  in  chapter  ii.  12,*  using,  as  he  does  here,  the 
Greek  perfect  participle,  which  denotes  an  abiding  fact. 
These  two  alienations  generally  coincide.  Outside  the 
religious  community,  we  are  outside  the  religious  life. 
This  expression  gathers  to  a  point  what  was  said  in 
verses  ii,  12  of  chapter  ii.,  and  further  back  in  verses 
1-3  ;  it  discloses  the  spring  of  the  soul's  malady  and 
decay  in  its  separation  from  the  living  God.  When 
shall  we  learn  that  in  God  only  is  our  life  ?  We  may 
exist  without  God,  as  a  tree  cast  out  in  the  desert,  or 
a  body  wasting  in  the  grave  ;  but  that  is  not  life. 

Everywhere  the  apostle  moved  amongst  men  who 
seemed  to  him  dead — ^joyless,  empty-hearted,  weary  of 
an  idle  learning  or  lost  in  sullen  ignorance,  caring  only 
to  eat  and  drink  till  they  should  die  like  the  beasts. 
Their  so-called  gods  were  phantasms  of  the  Divine,  in 
which  the  wiser  of  them  scarcely  even  pretended  to 
believe.  The  ancient  natural  pieties — not  wholly  un- 
touched by  the  Spirit  of  God,  despite  their  idolatry — 
that  peopled  with  fair  fancies  the  Grecian  shores  and 
skies,  and  taught  the  sturdy  Roman  his  manfulness  and 
hallowed  his  love  of  home  and  city,  were  all  but  extin- 
guished.    Death  was  at  the  heart  of  Pagan  religion  ; 

*  See  p.  129. 


268  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

corruption  in  its  breath.  Few  indeed  were  those  who 
.believed  in  the  existence  of  a  wise  and  righteous  Power 
behind  the  veil  of  sense.  The  Roman  augurs  laughed 
at  their  own  auspices  ;  the  priests  made  a  traffic  of  their 
temple  ceremonies.  Sorcery  of  all  kinds  was  rife,  as 
rife  as  scepticism.  The  most  fashionable  rites  of  the 
day  were  the  gloomy  and  revolting  mysteries  imported 
from  Egypt  and  Syria.  A  hundred  years  before,  the 
Roman  poet  Lucretius  expressed,  with  his  burning 
indignation,  the  disposition  of  earnest  and  high-minded 
men  towards  the  creeds  of  the  later  classic  times : — 

"Humana  ante  oculos  foede  cum  vita  jaceret, 
In  terns  oppressa  gravi  sub  religione, 
Quae  caput  e  coeli  regionibus  ostendebat 
Horribili  super  aspectu  mortalibus  instans, 
Primum  Graius  homo  movtalis  tollere  contra 
Est  oculos  ausus  primusque  obsistere  contra."  * 

De  Reriun  Natura  :  Bk.  I.,  62-67. 

How  alienated  from  the  life  of  God  were  those  who 
conceived  such  sentiments,  and  those  whose  creed 
excited  this  repugnance.  And  when  amongst  ourselves, 
as  it  occurs  in  some  unhappy  instances,  a  similar  bitter- 
ness is  cherished,  it  is  matter  of  double  sorrow, — of 
grief  at  once  for  the  alienation  prompting  thoughts  so 
dark  and  unjust  towards  our  God  and  Father,  and  for 
the  misshapen  guise  in  which  our  holy  religion  has 
been  presented  to  make  this  aversion  possible. 

The  phrase  "  alienated  from  the  life  of  God  "  denotes 
an  objective  position  rather  than  a  subjective  disposition, 

*  "  When  human  life  to  view  lay  foully  prostrate  upon  earth,  crushed 
down  under  the  weight  of  religion,  who  showed  her  head  from  the 
quarters  of  heaven  with  hideous  aspect  lowering  upon  mortals,  a  man  of 
Greece  ventured  first  to  lift  up  his  mortal  eyes  to  her  face  and  first  to 
withstand  her  to  her  face  "  (Munro). 


iv.  17-19.]         THE   WALK  OF  THE   GENTHES.  269 

the  state  and  place  of  the  man  who  is  far  from  God  and 
and  his  true  Kfe.  God  exiles  sinners  from  His  presence. 
By  a  necessary  law,  their  sin  acts  as  a  sentence  of 
deprivation.  Under  its  ban  they  go  forth,  like  Cain, 
from  the  presence  of  the  Lord.  They  can  no  longer 
partake  of  the  light  of  life  which  streams  forth  evermore 
from  God  and  fills  the  souls  that  abide  in  His  love. 

And  this  banishment  was  due  to  the  cause  already 
described, — to  the  radical  perversion  of  the  Gentile  mind, 
which  is  re-affirmed  in  the  double  prepositional  clause 
of  verse  18  :  "  because  of  the  ignorance  that  is  in  them, 
because  of  the  hardening  of  their  heart."  The  repeated 
preposition  {because  of)  attaches  the  two  parallel  clauses 
to  the  same  predicate.  "Together  they  serve  to  explain 
this  sad  estrangement  from  the  Divine  life  ;  the  second 
because  supplements  the  first.  It  is  the  ingrained 
"  ignorance  "  of  men  that  excludes  them  from  the  life  of 
God  ;  and  this  ignorance  is  no  misfortune  or  unavoid- 
able fate,  it  is  due  to  a  positive  ''  hardening  of  the 
heart." 

Ignorance  is  not  the  mother  of  devotion,  but  of 
indevotion.  If  men  knew  God,  they  would  certainly 
love  and  serve  Him.  St  Paul  agreed  with  Socrates 
and  Plato  in  holding  that  virtue  is  knowledge.  The 
debasement  of  the  heathen  world,  he  declares  again  and 
again,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  it  "  knew  not  God."  * 
The  Corinthian  Church  was  corrupted  and  its  Christian 
life  imperilled  by  the  presence  in  it  of  some  who  "  had 
not  the  knowledge  of  God"-(i  Cor.  xv.  33,  34).  At 
Athens,  the  centre  of  heathen  wisdom,  he  spoke  of  the 
Pagan  ages  as  "  the  times  of  ignorance  "  (Acts  xvii.  30)  ; 
and    found    in  this   want  of  knowledge  a  measure  of 

*  I  Thess.  iv.  5  ;  2  Thess.  i.  8  ;  Gal.  iv.  8,  9. 


270  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

excuse.  But  the  ignorance  he  censures  is  not, of  the 
understanding  alone  ;  nor  is  it  curable  by  philosophy 
and  science.  It  has  an  intrinsic  ground, — "existing  in 
them." 

Since  the  world's  creation,  the  apostle  says,  God's 
unseen  presence  has  been  clearly  visible  (Rom.  i.  20). 
Yet  multitudes  of  men  have  always  held  false  and 
corrupting  views  of  the  Divine  nature.  At  this  present 
time,  in  the  full  light  of  Christianity,  men  of  high 
intellect  and  wide  knowledge  of  nature  are  found  pro- 
claiming in  the  most  positive  terms  that  God,  if  He 
exists,  is  unknowable.  This  ignorance  it  is  not  for  us 
to  censure ;  every  man  must  give  account  of  himself  to 
God.  There  may  be  in  individual  cases,  amongst  the 
enlightened  deniers  of  God  in  our  own  days,  causes 
of  misunderstanding  beyond  the  will,  obstructing  and 
darkening  circumstances,  on  the  ground  of  which  in 
His  merciful  and  wise  judgement  God  may  **  overlook  " 
that  ignorance,  even  as  He  did  the  ignorance  of  earlier 
ages.  But  it  is  manifest  that  while  this  veil  remains, 
those  on  whose  heart  it  lies  cannot  partake  in  the  life 
of  God.  Living  in  unbelief,  they  walk  in  darkness  to 
the  end,  knowing  not  whither  they  go. 

The  Gentile  ignorance  of  God  was  attended,  as  St 
Paul  saw  it,  with  an  induration  of  hearty  of  which  it 
was  at  once  the  cause  and  the  effect.  There  is  a  wilful 
stupidity,  a  studied  misconstruction  of  God's  will,  which 
has  played  a  large  part  in  the  history  of  unbelief.  The 
JsraeHtish  people  presented  at  this  time  a  terrible 
example  of  such  guilty  callousness  (Rom.  xi.  7-10,  25). 
They  professed  a  mighty  zeal  for  God ;  but  it  was  a 
passion  for  the  deity  of  their  partial  and  corrupt  imagi- 
nation, which  turned  to  hatred  of  the  true  God  and 
Father  of  men  when  He  appeared  in  the  person  of  His 


iv.  17-19.]         THE   WALK   OF   THE   GENTILES.  271 

Son.  Behind  their  pride  of  knowledge  lay  the  ignorance 
of  a  hard  and  impenitent  heart. 

In  the  case  of  the  heathen,  hardness  of  heart  and 
religious  ignorance  plainly  went  together.  The  know- 
ledge of  God  was  not  altogether  wanting  amongst  them  ; 
He  "  left  Himself  not  without  witness,"  as  the  apostle 
told  them  (Acts  xiv.  17).  Where  there  is,  amid  what- 
ever darkness,  a  mind  seeking  after  truth  and  right, 
some  ray  of  light  is  given,  some  gleam  of  a  better  hope 
by  which  the  soul  may  draw  nigh  to  God, — coming 
whence  or  how  perhaps  none  can  tell.  The  gospel  of 
Christ  finds  in  every  new  land  souls  waiting  for  God's 
salvation.  Such  a  preparation  for  the  Lord,  in  hearts 
touched  and  softened  by  the  preventings  of  grace,  its 
first  messengers  discovered  everywhere, — a  remnant  in 
Israel  and  a  great  multitude  amongst  the  heathen. 

But  the  Jewish  nation  as  a  whole,  and  the  mass  of 
the  pagans,  remained  at  present  obstinately  disbelieving. 
They  had  no  perception  of  the  life  of  God,  and  felt  no 
need  of  it ;  and  when  offered,  they  thrust  it  from  them. 
Theirs  was  another  god,  "  the  god  of  this  world,"  who 
"  blinds  the  minds  of  the  unbelieving"  (2  Cor.  iv.  3,  4). 
And  their  "ungodliness  and  unrighteousness"  were 
not  to  be  pitied  more  than  blamed.  They  might  have 
known  better ;  they  were  '^  holding  down  the  truth  in 
unrighteousness,"  putting  out  the  light  that  was  in 
them  and  contradicting  their  better  instincts.  The 
wickedness  of  that  generation  was  the  outcome  of  a 
hardening  of  heart  and  blinding  of  conscience  that  had 
been  going  on  for  generations  past. 

III.  By  two  conspicuous  features  the  decaying 
Paganism  of  the  Christian  era  was  distinguished, — its 
unbelief  and  its  licentiousness.  In  his  letter  to  the 
Romans   St    Paul    declares    that    the   second   of  these 


272  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

deplorable  characteristics  was  the  consequence  of  the 
former,  and  a  punishment  for  it  inflicted  by  God. 
Here  he  points  to  it  as  a  manifestation  of  the  harden- 
ing of  heart  which  caused  their  ignorance  of  God : 
**  Having  lost  all  feeling,  they  gave  themselves  up  to 
lasciviousness,  so  as  to  commit  every  kind  of  unclean- 
ness  in  greediness." 

Upon  that  brilliant  classic  civilization  there  lies  a 
shocking  stain  of  impurity.  St  Paul  stamps  upon  it 
the  burning  word  Aselgeia' {hscivioiisness),  like  a  brand 
on  the  harlot's  brow.  The  habits  of  daily  life,  the 
literature  and  art  of  the  Greek  world,  the  atmosphere 
of  society  in  the  great  cities  was  laden  with  corruption. 
Sexual  vice  was  no  longer  counted  vice.  It  was 
provided  for  by  public  law;  it  was  incorporated  into 
the  worship  of  the  gods.  It  was  cultivated  in  every 
luxurious  and  monstrous  excess.  It  was  eating  out 
the  manhood  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  races.  From  the 
imperial  Caesar  down  to  the  horde  of  slaves,  it  seemed 
as  though  every  class  of  society  had  abandoned  itself 
to  the  horrid  practices  of  lust. 

The  "  greediness "  with  which  debauchery  was  then 
pursued,  is  at  the  bottom  self-idolatry,  self-deification  ; 
it  is  the  absorption  of  the  God-given  passion  and  will 
of  man's  nature  in  the  gratification  of  his  appetites. 
Here  lies  the  reservoir  and  spring  of  sin,  the  burning 
deep  within  the  soul  of  him  who  knows  no  God  but 
his  own  will,  no  law  above  his  own  desire.  He  plunges 
into  sensual  indulgence,  or  he  grasps  covetously  at 
wealth  or  office ;  he  wrecks  the  purity,  or  tramples  on 
the  rights  of  others ;  he  robs  the  weak,  he  corrupts  the 
innocent,  he  deceives  and  mocks  the  simple — to  feed 
the  gluttonous  idol  of  self  that  sits  upon  God's  seat 
within   him.     The   military   hero  wading   to  a  throne 


iv.  17-19.]         THE   WALK  OF  THE   GENTILES.  273 


through  seas  of  blood,  the  politician  who  wins  power 
and  office  by  the  sleights  of  a  supple  tongue,  the  dealer 
on  the  exchange  who  supplants  every  competitor  by 
his  shrewd  foresight  and  unscrupulous  daring,  and 
absorbs  the  fruit  of  the  labour  of  thousands  of  his 
fellow-men,  the  sensualist  devising  some  new  and 
more  voluptuous  refinement  of  vice,— these  are  all  the 
miserable  slaves  of  their  own  lust,  driven  on  by  the 
insatiate  craving  of  the  false  god  that  they  carry  within 
their  breast. 

For  the  light-hearted  Greeks,  lovers  of  beauty  and 
of  laughter,  self  was  deified  as  Aphrodite,  goddess  of 
fleshly  desire,  who  was  turned  by  their  worship  into 
Aseigeiaj — she  of  whom  of  old  it  was  said,  "  Her  house 
is  the  way  to  Sheol."  Not  such  as  the  chaste  wife  and 
house-keeping  mother  of  Hebrew  praise,  but  Lais  with 
her  venal  charms  was  the  subject  of  Greek  song  and 
art.  Pure  ideals  of  womanhood  the  classic  nations  had 
once  known — or  never  would  those  nations  have  become 
great  and  famous— a  Greek  Alcestis  and  Antigone, 
Roman  Cornelias  and  Lucretias,  noble  maids  and 
matrons.  But  these,  in  the  dissolution  of  manners,  had 
given  place  to  other  models.  The  wives  and  daughters 
of  the  Greek  citizens  were  shut  up  to  contempt  and 
ignorance,  while  the  priestesses  of  vice— heicercs  they 
were  called,  or  companions  of  men — queened  it  in  their 
voluptuous  beauty,  until  their  bloom  faded  and  poison 
or  madness  ended  their  fatal  days. 

Amongst  the  Jews  whom  our  Lord  addressed,  the 
choice  lay  between  "  God  and  Mammon  "  ;  in  Corinth 
and  Ephesus,  it  was  "Christ  or  Behal."  These  ancient 
gods  of  the  world — *'  mud-gods,"  as  Thomas  Carlyle 
called  them — are  set  up  in  the  high  places  of  our  popu- 
lous cities.     To  the  slavery  of  business  and  the  pride  of 

18 


274  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS, 

wealth  men  sacrifice  health  and  leisure,  improvement 
of  mind,  religion,  charity,  love  of  country,  family  affec- 
tion. How  many  of  the  evils  of  English  society  come 
from  this  root  of  all  evil  ! 

Hard  by  the  temple  of  Mammon  stands  that  of  Belial. 
Their  votaries  mingle  in  the  crowded  amusements  of  the 
day  and  rub  shoulders  with  each  other.  Aselgeia  flaunts 
herself,  wise  observers  tell  us,  with  increasing  boldness 
in  the  European  capitals.  Theatre  and  picture-gallery 
and  novel  pander  to  the  desire  of  the  eye  and  the  lust  of 
the  flesh.  The  daily  newspapers  retail  cases  of  divorce 
and  hideous  criminal  trials  with  greater  exactness  than 
the  debates  of  ParHament ;  and  the  appetite  for  this 
garbage  grows  by  what  it  feeds  upon.  It  is  plain  to 
see  whereunto  the  decay  of  public  decency  and  the 
revival  of  the  animalism  of  pagan  art  and  manners  will 
grow,  if  it  be  not  checked  by  a  deepened  Christian  faith 
and  feeling. 

Past  feeling  S2iys  the  apostle  of  the  brazen  impudicity 
of  his  time.  The  loss  of  the  religious  sense  blunted 
all  moral  sensibility.  The  Greeks,  by  an  early  instinct 
of  their  language,  had  one  word  for  modesty  and  rever- 
encey  for  self-respect  and  awe  before  the  Divine.  There 
is  nothing  more  terrible  than  the  loss  of  shame.  When 
immodesty  is  no  longer  felt  as  an  affront,  when  there 
fails  to  rise  in  the  blood  and  burn  upon  the  cheek  the 
hot  resentment  of  a  wholesome  nature  against  things 
that  are  foul,  when  we  grow  tolerant  and  familiar 
with  their  presence,  we  are  far  down  the  slopes  of  hell. 
It  needs  only  the  kindling  of  passion,  or  the  removal 
of  the  checks  of  circumstance,  to  complete  the  descent. 
The  pain  that  the  sight  of  evil  gives  is  a  divine  shield 
against  it.  Wearing  this  shield,  the  sinless  Christ 
fought  our  battle,  and  bore  the  anguish  of  our  sin. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

THE   TWO  HUMAN   TYPES. 

"But  ye  did  not  so  learn  the  Christ ;  if  so  be  that  ye  heard  Him, 
and  were  taught  in  Him,  even  as  truth  is  in  Jesus  :  that  ye  put  away, 
as  concerning  your  former  manner  of  life,  the  old  man,  which  waxeth 
corrupt  after  the  lusts  of  deceit  ;  and  that  ye  be  renewed  in  the  spirit  of 
your  mind,  and  put  on  the  new  rran,  which  after  God  hath  been  created 
in  righteousness  and  holiness  of  the  truth." — Eph.  iv.  20-24. 

DUT  OS  for  you! — The  apostle  points  us  from 
^^  heathendom  to  Christendom.  From  the  men  of 
Winded  understanding  and  impure  life  he  turns  to  the 
cleansed  and  instructed.  "  Not  thus  did  you  learn 
the  Christ  " — not  to  remain  in  the  darkness  and  filth 
of  your  Gentile  state. 

The  phrase  is  highly  condensed.  The  apostle,  in 
this  letter  so  exuberant  in  expression,  yet  on  occasion 
is  as  concise  as  in  Galatians.  One  is  tempted,  as  Beza 
suggested  *  and  Hofmann  insists,  to  put  a  stop  at  this 
point  and  to  read  :  "  But  with  you  it  is  not  so  :  f  you 
learned  the  Christ  !  "  In  spite  of  its  abruptness,  this 
construction  would  be  necessary,  if  it  were  only  "  the 
Gentiles"  of  verse  17  with  whose  "walk"  St  Paul 
means    to  contrast   that  of  his  readers.      But,   as  we 

*  Quid  si  post  ouTws  distinctionem  ascribas  ?  Vos  autem  no7i  ita  (sub- 
■5M(S\facere  convenit),  qui  didicistis,  etc. 

t  Comp.  Numb.  xii.  7  ;  Ps.  i.  4  ;  Luke  xxii.  26,  for  this  Hebraistic 
turn  of  expression. 

275 


276  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 


have  seen,  he  has  before  his  eye  a  third  class  of  men, 
unprincipled  Christian  teachers  (ver.  14),  men  who 
had  in  some  sense  learnt  of  Christ  and  yet  walked  in 
Gentile  ways  and  were  leading  others  back  to  them.* 
Verse  20,  after  all,  forms  a  coherent  clause.  It  points 
an  antithesis  of  solemn  import.  There  are  genuine, 
and  there  are  supposed  conversions ;  there  are  true 
and  false  ways  of  learning  Christ. 

Strictly  speaking,  it  is  not  Christy  but  the  Christ 
whom  St  Paul  presumes  his  readers  to  have  duly 
learnt.f  The  words  imply  a  comprehending  faith,  that 
knows  who  and  what  Christ  is  and  what  believing  in 
Him  means,  that  has  mastered  His  great  lessons.  To 
such  a  faith,  which  views  Christ  in  the  scope  and 
breadth  of  His  redemption,  this  epistle  throughout 
appeals ;  for  its  impartation  and  increase  St  Paul 
prayed  the  wonderful  prayer  of  the  third  chapter. 
When  he  writes  not  simply,  "  You  have  believed  in 
Christ,"  but  "  You  have  learned  the  Christ,^^  he  puts 
their  faith  upon  a  high  level ;  it  is  the  faith  of  approved 
disciples  in  Christ's  school.  For  such  men  the  "  philo- 
sophy and  vain  deceit "  of  Colossae  and  the  plausibilities 
of  the  new  "  scheme  of  error "  will  have  no  charm. 
They  have  found  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  know- 
ledge that  are  hidden  in  Christ. 

The  apostle's  confidence  in  the  Christian  knowledge 
of  his  readers  is,  however,  qualified,  in  verse  21  in  a 
somewhat  remarkable  way  :  "  If  verily  it  is  He  whom 
you  heard,  and  in  Him  that  you  were  taught,  as  truth 
is  in  Jesus."  We  noted  at  the  outset  the  bearing  of 
this  sentence  on  the  destination  of  the  letter.  It  would 
never  occur  to  St  Paul  to  question  whether  the  Ephesian 

*  Comp.  Phil.  iii.  2,  18 ;  Titus  i.  16. 
t  See  pp.  47,  83,  169,  189. 


iv.  20-24-]  THE   TWO  HUMAN  TYPES.  277 

Christians  were  taught  Christ's  true  doctrine.  If  there 
were  any  beUevers  in  the  world  who,  beyond  a  doubt,  had 
heard  the  truth  as  in  Jesus  in  its  certainty  and  fulness, 
it  was  those  amongst  whom  the  apostle  had  '*  taught 
publicly  and  from  house  to  house,"  *'  not  shunning  to 
declare  all  the  counsel  of  God  "  and  "  for  three  years 
night  and  day  unceasingly  with  tears  admonishing  each 
single  one"  (A_cts  xx.  18-35).  To  suppose  these  words 
written  in  irony,  or  in  a  modest  affectation,  is  to  credit 
St  Paul  with  something  like  an  ineptitude.  Doubt  was 
really  possible  as  to  whether  all  his  readers  had  heard 
of  Christ  aright,  and  understood  the  obligations  of  their 
faith.  Supposing,  as  we  have  done,  that  the  epistle 
was  designed  for  the  Christians  of  the  province  of  Asia 
generally,  this  qualification  is  natural  and  intelligible. 

There  are  several  considerations  which  help  to 
account  for  it.  When  St  Paul  first  arrived  at  Ephesus, 
eight  years  before  this  time,  he  "  found  certain  dis- 
ciples"  there  who  had  been  "baptized  into  John's 
baptism,"  but  had  not  "  received  the  Holy  Spirit "  nor 
even  heard  of  such  a  thing  (Acts  xix.  1-7).  A_pollos 
formerly  belonged  to  this  company,  having  preached 
and  "  taught  carefully  the  things  about  Jesus,"  while 
he  "knew  only  the  baptism  of  John"  (Acts  xviii.  25). 
One  very  much  desires  to  know  more  about  this  Church 
of  the  Baptist's  disciples  in  Asia  Minor.  Its  existence 
so  far  away  from  Palestine  testifies  to  the  power  of 
John's  ministry  and  the  deep  impression  that  his  wit- 
ness to  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  made  on  his  disciples. 
The  ready  reception  of  Paul's  fuller  gospel  by  this  little 
circle  indicates  that  their  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ 
erred  only  by  defect ;  they  had  received  it  from  Judaea 
by  a  source  dating  earlier  than  the  day  of  Pentecost. 
The  partial  knowledge  of  Jesus  current  for  so  long  at 


278  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

EphesuS;  may  have  extended  to  other  parts  of  the 
province,  where  St  Paul  had  not  been  able  to  correct 
it  as  he  had  done  in  the  metropolis. 

Judaistic  Christians,  such  as  those  who  at  Rome 
"  preached  Christ  of  envy  and  strife/'  were  also  dis- 
seminating an  imperfect  Christian  doctrine.  They 
limited  the  rights  of  uncircumcised  believers;  they 
misrepresented  the  Gentile  apostle  and  undermined  his 
influence.  A  third  and  still  more  lamentable  cause  of 
uncertaint}^  in  regard  to  the  Christian  belief  of  Asian 
Churches,  was  introduced  by  the  rise  of  Gnosticizing 
error  in  this  quarter.  Some  who  read  the  epistle  had, 
it  might  be,  received  their  first  knowledge  of  Christ 
through  channels  tainted  with  error  similar  to  that 
which  was  propagated  at  Colossae.  With  the  seed  of 
the  kingdom  the  enemy  was  mingUng  vicious  tares. 
The  apostle  has  reason  to  fear  that  there  were  those 
within  the  wide  circle  to  which  his  letter  is  addressed, 
who  had  in  one  form  or  other  heard  a  different  gospel 
and  a  Christ  other  than  the  true  Christ  of  apostolic 
teaching. 

Where  does  he  find  the  test  and  touchstone  of  the 
true  Christian  doctrine  ? — In  the  historical  Jesus  :  "as 
there  is  truth  in  Jesus^  Not  often,  nor  without  dis- 
tinct meaning,  does  St  Paul  use  the  birth-name  of  the 
Saviour  by  itself.  Where  he  does,  it  is  most  significant. 
He  has  in  mind  the  facts  of  the  gospel  history  ;  he 
speaks  of  ''  the  Jesus "  *  of  Nazareth  and  Calvary. 
The  Christ  whom  St  Paul  feared  that  some  of  his 
readers    might  have    heard    of  was  not    the    veritable 

*  'FiffTLv  d\r)6eia  iv  ry  'Iriaou.  The  article  with  the  proper  name  is 
most  significant.  It  points  to  the  definite  image  of  Jesus,  in  His  actual 
person,  that  was  made  familiar  by  the  preaching  of  Paul  and  the  other 
apostles. 


iv.  20-24.]  THE   TWO  HUMAN   TYPES.  279 


Jesus  Christ,  but  a  shadowy  and  notional  Christ,  lost 
amongst  the  crowd  of  angels,  such  as  was  now  being 
taught  to  the  Colossians.  This  Christ  was  neither 
the  image  of  God,  nor  the  true  Son  of  man.  He 
supplied  no  sufficient  redemption  from  sin,  no  ideal 
of  character,  no  sure  guidance  and  authority  to  direct 
the  daily  walk.  Those  who  followed  such  a  Christ 
would  fall  back  unchecked  into  Gentile  vice.  "Instead 
of  the  light  of  life  shining  in  the  character  and  words 
of  Jesus,  they  must  resort  to  '*  the  doctrines  and  com- 
mandments of  men  "  (Col.  ii.  8-23). 

Amongst  the  Gnostics  of  the  second  century  there 
was  held  a  distinction  between  the  human  (fleshly  and 
imperfect)  Jesus   and     the    Divine    Christ,    who    were 
regarded    as    distinct    beings,    united    to    each    other 
from  the  time  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  to  His  death. 
The  critics  who  assert  the  late  and  non-Pauline  author- 
ship of  the  epistle,  assert   that  this   peculiar  doctrine 
is    aimed    at   in    the    words    before    us,  and    that    the 
identification    of  Christ    with    Jesus    has    a   polemical 
reference  to  this  advanced  Gnostic  error.     The  verses 
that  follow  show  that  the  writer  has   a  different  and 
entirely  practical  aim.     The  apostle   points  us  to  our 
true  ideal,  to  "  the  Christ "  of  all  revelation  manifest  in 
"  the  Jesus  "  of  the  gospel.    Here  we  see  "  the  new  man 
created  after  God,"  whose  nature  we  must  embody  in 
ourselves.     The    counteractive  of  a  false  spiritualism 
is  found  in  the  incarnate  Hfe  of  the  Son  of  God.     The 
dualism    which    separated    God    from    the    world    and 
man's  spirit  from  his  flesh,  had  its  refutation  in  ''  the 
Jesus  "  of  Paul's  preaching,  whom  we  see  in  the  Four 
Gospels.     Those  who  persisted  in  the  attempt  to  graft 
the  dualistic  theosophy  upon  the  Christian  faith,  were 
in  the  end  compefled  to  divide  and  destroy  the  Christ 


28o  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Himself.     They  broke    up  into   Jesus  and  Christ   the 
unity  of  His  incarnate  Person. 

It  is  an  entire  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  apostle 
Paul  was  indifferent  to  the  historical  tradition  of  Jesus ; 
that  the  Christ  he  taught  was  a  product  of  his  personal 
inspiration,  of  his  inward  experience  and  theological 
reflection.  This  preaching  of  an  abstract  Christ,  distinct 
from  the  actual  Jesus,  is  the  very  thing  that  he  con- 
demns. Although  his  explicit  references  in  the  epistles 
to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  the  events  of  His  earthly 
life  are  not  numerous,  they  are  such  as  to  prove  that 
the  Churches  St  Paul  taught  were  well  instructed  in 
that  history.  From  the  beginning  the  apostle  made 
himself  well  acquainted  with  the  facts  concerning  Jesus, 
and  had  become  possessor  of  all  that  the  earlier 
witnesses  could  relate.  His  conception  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  is  living  and  realistic  in  the  highest 
degree.  Its  germ  was  in  the  visible  appearance  of  the 
glorified  Jesus  to  himself  on  the  Damascus  road  ;  but 
that  expanding  germ  struck  down  its  roots  into  the 
rich  soil  of  the  Church's  recollections  of  the  incarnate 
Redeemer  as  He  lived  and  taught  and  laboured,  as  He 
died  and  rose  again  amongst  men.  Paul's  Christ  was 
the  Jesus  of  Peter  and  of  John  and  of  our  own 
Evangelists  ;  there  was  no  other.  He  warns  the 
Church  against  all  unhistorical,  subjective  Christs,  the 
product  of  human  speculation. 

The  Asian  Christians  who  held  a  true  faith,  had 
received  Jesus  as  the  Christ.  So  accepting  Him, 
they  accepted  a  fixed  standard  and  ideal  of  Hfe  for 
themselves.  With  Jesus  Christ  evidently  set  forth 
before  their  eyes,  let  them  look  back  upon  their  past 
life;  let  them  contrast  what  they  had  been  with  what 


/.20-24.]  THE   TWO  HUMAN   TYPES. 


28: 


they  are  to  be.  Let  them  consider  what  things  they 
must  ''put  off"  and  what  "put  on,"  so  that  they  may 
"be  found  in  Him." 

Strangely  did  the  image  of  Jesus  confront  the  pagan 
world ;  keenly  its  light  smote  on  that  gross  darkness. 
There  stood  the  Word  made  flesh— purity  immaculate, 
love  in  its  very  self— shaped  forth  in  no  dream  of 
fancy  or  philosophy,  but  in  the  veritable  man  Christ 
Jesus,  born  of  Mary,  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate,— 
truth  expressed 

"  In  loveliness  of  perfect  deeds, 
More  strong  than  all  poetic  thought." 

And  this  hfe  of  Jesus,  Hving  in  those  who  loved  Him 
(2  Cor.  iv.  II),  ended  not  when  He  passed  from  earth  ; 
it  passed  from  land  to  land,  speaking  many  tongues, 
raising  up  new  witnesses  at  every  step  as  it  moved 
along.  It  was  not  a  new  system,  a  new  creed,  but  new 
men  that  it  gave  the  world  in  Christ's  disciples,  men 
redeemed  from  all  iniquity,  noble  and  pure  as  sons  of 
God.  It  was  the  sight  of  Jesus,  and  of  men  hke  Jesus, 
that  shamed  the  old  world,  so  corrupt  and  false  and 
hardened  in  its  sin.  In  vain  she  summoned  the  gates 
of  death  to  silence  the  witnesses  of  Jesus.     At  last 

"  She  veiled  her  eagles,  snapped  her  sword, 

And  laid  her  sceptre  down  ; 
Her  stately  purple  she  abhorred. 

And  her  imperial  crown. 
She  broke  her  flutes,  she  stopped  her  sports. 

Her  artists  could  not  please; 
She  tore  her  books,  she  shut  her  courts. 

She  fled  her  palaces  ; 
Lust  of  the  eye  and  pride  of  life — 

She  left  it  all  behind, 
And  hurried,  torn  with  inward  strife, 

The  wilderness  to  find"  {Obennann  once  moj-e). 


282  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  Galilean  conquered  !  The  new  man  was  destined 
to  convict  and  destroy  the  old.  "  God  sending  His 
Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin,  con- 
demned sin  in  the  flesh"  (Rom.  viii.  3).  When  Jesus 
lived,  died,  and  rose  again,  an  inconceivable  revolution 
in  human  affairs  had  been  effected.  The  cross  was 
planted  on  the  territory  of  the  god  of  this  world ;  its 
victory  was  inevitable.  The  '*  grain  of  wheat "  fell  into 
the  ground  to  die  :  there  might  be  still  a  long,  cruel 
winter;  many  a  storm  and  blight  would  delay  its 
growth  ;  but  the  harvest  was  secure.  Jesus  Christ  was 
the  type  and  the  head  of  a  new  moral  order,  destined 
to  control  the  universe. 

To  see  the  new  and  the  old  man  side  by  side  was 
enough  to  assure  one  that  the  future  lay  with  Jesus. 
Corruption  and  decrepitude  marked  every  feature  of 
Gentile  life.  It  was  gangrened  with  vice, — ''  wasting 
away  in  its  deceitful  lusts." 

St  Paul  had  before  his  eyes,  as  he  wrote,  a  con- 
spicuous type  of  the  decaying  Pagan  order.  He  had 
appealed  as  a  citizen  of  the  empire  to  Ccesar  as  his 
judge.  He  was  in  durance  as  Nerds  prisoner,  and  was 
acquainted  with  the  Hfe  of  the  palace  (Phil.  i.  13). 
Never,  perhaps,  has  any  line  of  rulers  dominated  man- 
kind so  absolutely  or  held  in  their  single  hand  so  com- 
pletely the  resources  of  the  world  as  did  the  Caesars  of 
St  Paul's  time.  Their  name  has  ever  since  served  to 
mark  the  summit  of  autocratic  power.  It  was,  surely, 
the  vision  of  Tiberius  sitting  at  Rome  that  Jesus  saw 
in  the  wilderness,  when  ''  the  devil  showed  Him  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  their  glory;  and  said, 
All  this  hath  been  delivered  to  me,  and  to  whomsoever 
I  will  I  give  it."  The  Emperor  was  the  topstone  of 
the  splendid  edifice  of  Pagan  civilization,  that  had  been 


iv.  20-24.]  THE   TWO  HUMAN   TYPES.  283 

rearing  for  so   many  ages.     And  Nero  was  the  final 
product  and  paragon  of  the  Ceesarean  house  ! 

At  this  epoch,  writes  M.  Renan,*  ''Nero  and  Jesus, 
Christ    and    Antichrist,    stand    opposed,     confronting 
each  other,   if  I  may  dare  to  say  so,  hke  heaven  and 
hell.  ...  In    face    of  Jesus    there    presents    itself    a 
monster,  who  is    the  ideal  of  evil   as  Jesus  of  good- 
ness. .  .  .  Nero's  was  an  evil  nature,  hypocritical,  vain, 
frivolous,  prodigiously  given  to  declamation  and  display  J 
a  blending  of  false  intellect,  profound  wickedness,  cruel 
and  artful  egotism  carried  to  an  incredible  degree  of 
refinement  and  subtlety.  ...  He  is  a  monster  who  has 
no  second  in  history,  and  whose  equal  we  can  only  find 
in   the    pathological   annals   of  the   scaffold.  .  .  .  The 
school  of  crime  in  which  he  had  grown  up,  the  execrable 
influence  of  his  mother,  the  stroke  of  parricide  forced 
upon  him,  as  one  might  say,  by  this  abominable  woman, 
by  which  he  had  entered  on  the  stage  of  pubHc  \\{^^ 
made  the  world  take  to  his  eyes  the  form  of  a  horrible 
comedy,  with  himself  for  the  chief  actor  in  it.     At  the 
moment  we  have  now  reached  [when  St  Paul  entered 
Rome],  Nero  had  detached  himself  completely  from  the 
philosophers  who  had  been  his  tutors.     He  had  killed 
nearly  all  his  relations.     He  had  made  the  most  shame- 
ful follies  the  common  fashion.     A  large  part  of  Roman 
society,  following  his  example,  had  descended  to  the 
lowest  level  of  debasement.     The  cruelty  of  the  ancient 
world  had  reached  its  consummation.   .  .   .  The  world 

*  V Antichrist,  pp.  i.  ii.  i,  2.  This  is  a  powerful  and  impressiT^ 
work,  of  whose  value  those  who  know  only  the  Vie  de  Jhiis  can  have 
little  conception.  Kenan's  faults  are  many  and  deplorable  ;  but  he  is  a 
writer  of  genuis  and  of  candour.  His  rationalism  teems  with  precious 
inconsistencies.  One  hears  in  him  always  the  Church  bells  ringing  under 
the  sea,  the  witness  of  a  faith  buried  in  the  heart  and  never  silenced 
to  which  he  confesses  touchingly  in  the  Preface  to  his  Souvenirs, 


284  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


had  touched  the  bottom  of  the  abyss  of  evil ;  it  could 
only  reascend." 

Such  was  the  man  who  occupied  at  this  time  the 
summit  of  human  power  and  glory, — the  man  who 
lighted  the  torch  of  Christian  martyrdom  and  at  whose 
sentence  St  Paul's  head  was  destined  to  fall,  the  Wild 
Beast  of  John's  awful  vision.  Nero  of  Rome,  the  son 
of  Agrippina,  embodied  the  triumph  of  Satan  as  the 
god  of  this  world.  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Son  of 
Mary,  reigned  only  in  a  few  loving  and  pure  hearts. 
Future  history,  as  the  scroll  of  the  Apocalypse  unfolded 
it,  was  to  be  the  battle-field  of  these  confronting  powers, 
the  war  of  Christ  with  Antichrist. 

Could  it  be  doubtful,  to  any  one  who  had  measured 
the  rival  forces,  on  which  side  victory  must  fall  ?  St 
Paul  pronounces  the  fate  of  the  whole  kingdom  of  evil 
in  this  world,  when  he  declares  that  "the  old  man"  is 
"  perishing,  according  to  the  lusts  of  deceit."  It  is  an 
application  of  the  maxim  he  gave  us  in  Galatians  vi.  8  : 
''  He  that  soweth  to  his  own  flesh,  shall  of  the  flesh 
reap  corruption."  In  its  mad  sensuality  and  prodigal 
lusts,  the  vile  Roman  world  he  saw  around  him  was 
speeding  to  its  ruin.  That  ruin  was  delayed ;  there 
were  moral  forces  left  in  the  fabric  of  the  Roman  State, 
which  in  the  following  generations  re-asserted  them- 
selves and  held  back  for  a  time  the  tide  of  disaster ; 
but  in  the  end  Rome  fell,  as  the  ancient  world-empires 
of  the  East  had  fallen,  through  her  own  corruption, 
and  by  "  the  wrath  "  which  is  "  revealed  from  heaven 
against  all  ungodliness  and  unrighteousness  of  men." 
For  the  solitary  man,  for  the  household,  for  the  body 
pohtic  and  the  family  of  nations  the  rule  is  the  same. 
"  Sin,  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth  death." 

The  passions  which  carry  men  and  nations  to  their 


iv.  20-24.]  THE   TWO  HUMAN   TYPES.  285 

ruin  are  ''lusts  of  deceit^  The  tempter  is  the  Har. 
Sin  is  an  enormous  fraud.  "  You  shall  not  die,"  said 
the  serpent  in  the  garden ;  "  Your  eyes  will  be  opened, 
and  you  will  be  as  God  ! "  So  forbidden  desire  was 
born,  and  ''  the  woman  being  deceived  fell  into  trans- 
gression." 

"  So  glistered  the  dire  Snake,  and  into  fraud 
Led  Eve,  our  credulous  mother,  to  the  tree 
Of  prohibition,  root  of  all  our  woe." 

By  its  baits  of  sensuous  pleasure,  and  still  more  by 
its  show  of  freedom  and  power  to  stir  our  pride,  sin 
cheats  us  of  our  manhood;  it  sows  life  with  misery, 
and  makes  us  self-despising  slaves.  It  knows  how 
to  use  God's  law  as  an  incitement  to  transgression, 
turning  the  very  prohibition  into  a  challenge  to  our 
bold  desires.  "  Sin  taking  occasion  by  the  com- 
mandment deceived  me,  and  by  it  slew  me."  Over  the 
pit  of  destruction  play  the  same  dancing  lights  that 
have  lured  countless  generations, — the  glitter  of  gold ; 
the  purple  robe  and  jewelled  coronet ;  the  wine  moving 
in  the  cup ;  fair,  soft  faces  lit  with  laughter.  The 
straying  foot  and  hot  desires  give  chase,  till  the  inevit- 
able moment  comes  when  the  treacherous  soil  yields, 
and  the  pursuer  plunges  beyond  escape  into  sin's 
reeking  gulfs.  Then  the  illusion  is  over.  The  gay 
faces  grow  foul ;  the  glittering  prize  proves  dust ;  the 
sweet  fruit  turns  to  ashes  ;  the  cup  of  pleasure  burns 
with  the  fire  of  hell.  And  the  sinner  knows  at  last 
that  his  greed  has  cheated  him,  that  he  is  as  foolish  as 
he  is  wicked. 

Let  us  remember  that  there  is  but  one  way  of  escape 
from  the  all-encompassing  deceit  of  sin.  It  is  in 
''learning  Christ."     Not  in  learning  about  Christ,   but 


286  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

in  learning  Him.  It  is  a  common  artifice  of  the  great 
deceit  to  *'  wash  the  outside  of  cup  and  platter."  The 
old  man  is  improved  and  civilized  ;  he  is  baptized  in 
infancy  and  called  a  Christian.  He  puts  off  many  of 
his  old  ways,  he  dresses  himself  in  a  decorous  garb  and 
style;  and  so  deceives  himself  into  thinking  that  he 
is  new,  while  his  heart  is  unchanged.  He  may  turn 
ascetic,  and  deny  this  or  that  to  himself;  and  yet  never 
deny  himself.  He  observes  religious  forms  and  makes 
charitable  benefactions,  as  though  he  would  compound 
with  God  for  his  unforsaken  sin.  But  all  this  is  only 
a  plausible  and  hateful  manifestation  of  the  lusts  of 
deceit.  To  learn  the  Christ,  is  to  learn  the  way  of  the 
cross.  *'  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me," 
He  bids  us  ;  "  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart."  Till 
we  have  done  this,  we  are  not  even  at  the  beginning 
of  our  lesson. 

From  the  perishing  old  man  the  apostle  turns,  in 
verses  23,  24,  to  the  new.  These  two  clauses  differ 
in  their  form  of  expression  more  than  the  English 
rendering  indicates.*  When  he  writes,  "that  ye  be 
renewed  in  the  spirit  of  your  mind,"  it  is  a  continual 
rejuvenation  that  he  describes;  the  verb  is  present  in 
tense,  and  the  newness  implied  is  that  of  recency  and 
youth,  newness  in  point  of  age.  But  the  "  new 
man"  to  be  ''put  on"  (ver.  24)  is  of  a  new  kind  and 
order)  and  in  this  instance  the  verb  is  of  the  aorist 
tense  signifying  an  event,  not  a  continuous  act.  The 
new  man  is  put  on  when  the  Christian  way  of  life  is 
adopted,  when  we  enter  personally  into  the  new 
humanity  founded  in  Christ.  We  "  put  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  "  (Rom.  xiii.  14),  who  covers  and  absorbs 

*  a.va.veovcQa.1  8e  ry  irvevfiari  rod  vobs  v/xCov, 

/cat  eudvaaadaL  rbv  Kaivov  avdpojirov,  tov  Kara  Qebv  KTurdtvra. 


^  20-24.]  THE   TWO  HUMAN   TYPES.  287 


the  old  self,  even  as  those  who  await  in  the  flesh  His 
second  advent  will  "put  on  the  house  from  heaven," 
when  "  the  mortal "  in  them  will  be  "  swallowed  up  of 
life  "  (2  Cor.  v.  2-4).  Thus  two  distinct  conceptions  of 
the  life  of  faith  are  placed  before  our  minds.  It  con- 
sists, on  the  one  hand,  of  a  quickening,  constantly 
renewed,  in  the  springs  of  our  individual  thought  and 
will;  and  it  is  at  the  same  time  the  assumption  of 
another  nature,  the  investiture  of  the  soul  with  the 
Divine  character  and  form  of  its  being. 

Borne  on  the  stream  of  his  evil  passions,  we  saw  "  the 
old  man  "  in  his  '^  former  manner  of  life,"  hastening  to 
the  gulf  of  ruin.  For  the  man  renewed  in  Christ  the 
stream  of  life  flows  steadily  in  the  opposite  direction, 
and  with  a  swelling  tide  moves  upward  to  God.  His 
knowledge  and  love  are  always  growing  in  depth,  in 
refinement,  in  energy  and  joy.  Thus  it  was  with  the 
apostle  in  his  advancing  age.  The  fresh  impulses  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  the  unfolding  to  his  spirit  of  the 
mystery  of  God,  the  fellowship  of  Christian  brethren 
and  the  interests  of  the  work  of  the  Church  renewed 
Paul's  youth  like  the  eagle's.  If  in  years  and  toil  he  is 
old,  his  soul  is  full  of  ardour,  his  intellect  keen  and 
eager ;  the  "  outward  man  decays,  but  the  inward  man 
is  renewed  day  by  day." 

This  new  nature  had  a  new  birth.  The  soul  reanimat- 
ing itself  perpetually  from  the  fresh  springs  that  are  in 
God,  had  in  God  the  beginning  of  its  renovated  life. 
We  have  not  to  create  or  fashion  for  ourselves  the 
perfect  life,  but  to  adopt  it, — to  realize  the  Christian 
ideal  (ver.  24).  We  are  called  to  put  on  the  new  type 
of  manhood  as  completely  as  we  renounce  the  old 
(ver.  22).  The  new  man  is  there  before  our  eyes, 
manifest  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  we 


288  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


live  henceforth.  When  we  "  learn  the  Christ,"  when  we 
have  become  His  true  disciples,  we  ^'put  on  "  His  nature 
and  "  walk  in  Him."  The  inward  reception  of  His  Spirit 
is  attended  by  the  outward  assumption  of  His  character 
as  our  calling  amongst  men. 

Now,  the  character  of  Jesus  is  human  nature  as 
God  first  formed  it.  It  existed  in  His  thoughts  from 
eternity.  If  it  be  asked  whether  St  Paul  refers,  in 
verse  24,  to  the  creation  of  Adam  in  God's  likeness,  or 
to  the  image  of  God  appearing  in  Jesus  Christ,  or  to  the 
Christian  nature  formed  in  the  regenerate,  we  should 
say  that,  to  the  apostle's  mind,  the  first  and  last  of 
these  creations  are  merged  in  the  second.  The  Son  of 
God's  love  is  His  primeval  image.  The  race  of  Adam 
was  created  in  Christ  (Col.  i.  15,  16).  The  first  model 
of  that  image,  in  the  natural  father  of  mankind,  was 
marred  by  sin  and  has  become  ''  the  old  man  "  corrupt 
and  perishing.  The  new  pattern  replacing  this  broken 
type  is  the  original  ideal,  displayed  "  in  the  hkeness  of 
sinful  flesh  " — wearing  no  longer  the  charm  of  childish 
innocence,  but  the  glory  of  sin  vanquished  and  sacrifice 
endured — in  the  Son  of  God  made  perfect  through 
suffering.  Through  all  there  has  been  only  one  image 
of  God,  one  ideal  humanity.  The  Adam  of  Paradise 
was,  within  his  limits,  what  the  Image  of  God  had  been 
in  perfectness  from  eternity.  And  Jesus  in  His  human 
personality  represented,  under  the  changed  circum- 
stances brought  about  by  sin,  what  Adam  might  have 
grown  to  be  as  a  complete  and  disciplined  man. 

The  qualities  which  the  apostle  insists  upon  in  the 
new  man  are  two  :  "  7ightcoitsncss  and  holiness  [or  //>/>'] 
of  the  truth."  This  is  the  Old  Testament  conception 
of  a  perfect  life,  whose  realization  the  devout  Zacharias 
anticipates  when  he  sings  how  God  has  "  shown  mercy 


iv.  20-24].  THE   TWO  HUMAN   TYPES.  289 

to  our  fathers,  in  remembrance  of  His  holy  cove- 
nant, .  .  .  that  we  being  deHvered  from  the  hand  of  our 
enemies,  might  serve  Him  without  fear,  in  hohness  and 
righteousness  before  Him  all  the  days  of  our  life." 
Enchanting  vision,  still  to  be  fulfilled  !  "  Righteous- 
ness "  is  the  sum  of  all  that  should  be  in  a  man's 
relations  towards  God's  law ;  ^*  holiness "  is  a  right 
disposition  and  bearing  towards  God  Himself.  This 
is  not  St  Paul's  ordinary  word  for  holiness  (sandifica- 
tioHy  sanctity),  which  he  puts  so  often  at  the  head  of  his 
letters,  addressing  his  readers  as  "saints"  in  Christ 
Jesus.  That  other  term  designates  Christian  believers 
as  devoted  persons,  claimed  by  God  for  His  own ;  * 
it  signifies  holiness  as  a  calling.  The  word  of  our 
text  denotes  specifically  the  holiness  of  temper  and 
behaviour — "  that  becometh  saints."  The  two  words 
differ  very  much  as  devotedness  from  devoutness.j 

A  religious  temper,  a  reverent  mind  marks  the  true 
child  of  grace.  His  soul  is  full  of  the  loving  fear  of 
God.  In  the  new  humanity,  in  the  type  of  man  that 
will  prevail  in  the  latter  days  when  the  truth  as  in 
Jesus  has  been  learnt  by  mankind,  justice  and  piety 
will  hold  a  balanced  sway.  The  man  of  the  coming 
times  will  not  be  atheistic  or  agnostic  :  he  will  be 
devout.  He  will  not  be  narrow  and  self-seeking ; 
he  will  not  be  pharisaic  and  pretentious,  practising  the 
world's  ethics  with  the  Christian's  creed  :  he"  will  be 
upright  and  generous,  manly  and  godlike. 

*  Comp.  pp.  29,  30. 

t  It  is  important  to  distinguish  the  Greek  adjectives  ci7ios  and  6Vioj, 
with  their  derivatives.  See  Cremer's  N.  T.  Lexicon  on  these  words,  and 
Trench's  N.  T.  Syiwnyms,  §  Ixxxviii.  Of  the  latter  word,  i  Thess. 
ii.  10 ;  I  Tim.  i.  9,  ii,  8 ;  2  Tim.  iii.  3 ;  Tit.  i.  8  are  the  only  examples  in 
St  Paul. 

19 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

DISCARDED      VICES. 

"Wherefore,  having  put  awaj^  falsehood,  'speak  ye  truth  each  one 
with  his  neighbour  ' :  for  we  are  members  one  of  another. 

" '  Be  ye  angry,  and  sin  not '  :  let  not  the  sun  go  down  upon  your 
provocation  :  neither  give  place  to  the  devil. 

*'  Let  him  that  stole  steal  no  more  :  but  rather  let  him  labour,  work- 
ing with  his  hands  the  thing  that  is  good,  that  he  may  have  whereof 
to  give  to  him  that  hath  need. 

"Let  no  worthless  speech  proceed  out  of  your  mouth,  but  such  as*  is 
good  for  edifying  as  the  need  may  be,  that  it  may  give  grace  to  them  that 
hear.  AVid  grieve  not  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  in  whom  ye  were  sealed 
unto  the  day  of  redemption. 

"  Let  all  bitterness,  and  wrath,  and  anger,  and  clamour,  and  railing 
be  put  away  from  you,  with  all  malice  :  and  be  ye  kind  one  to  another, 
tenderhearted,  forgiving  each  other,  even  as  God  also  in  Christ  forgave 
you.  Be  ye  therefore  imitators  of  God,  as  beloved  children  ;  and 
walk  in  love,  even'  as  the  Christ  also  loved  you,  and  gave  Himself  up 
for  us,  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  for  an  odour  of  a  sweet 
smell. 

"But  fornication,  and  all  uncleanness,  or  covetousness,  let  it  not 
even  be  named  among  you,  as  becometh  saints  ;  nor  filthiness,  nor 
foolish  talking,  nor  jesting,  which  are  not  befitting  :  but  rather  giving  of 
thanks.  For  this  ye  know  of  a  surety,  that  no  fornicator,  nor  unclean 
person,  nor  covetous  man,  which  is  an  idolater,  hath  any  inheritance 
in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  and  God.  Let  no  man  deceive  you  with  empty 
words  :  for  because  of  these  things  cometh  the  wrath  of  God  upon  the 
sons  of  disobedience." — Eph.  iv.  25 — v.  6. 

THE  transformation  described  in  the  last  paragraph 
(vv.    17-24)   has    now  to  be   carried  into  detail. 
The    vices   of  the  old   heathen  self   must   be  each  of 

290 


iv.25— V.6.]  DISCARDED    VICES. 


them  replaced  by  the  corresponding  graces  of  the  new- 
man  in  Christ  Jesus. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  instructions  given  by  the 
apostle  for  this  purpose  does  not  lie  in  the  virtues 
enjoined,  but  in  the  light  in  which  they  are  set  and  the 
motives  by  which  they  are  inculcated.  The  common 
conscience  condemns  lying  and  theft,  malice  and  un- 
cleanness ;  they  were  denounced  with  eloquence  by 
heathen  moralists.  But  the  ethics  of  the  New"  Testa- 
ment differed  in  many  respects  from  the  best  moral 
philosophy :  in  its  direct  appeal  to  the  conscience,  in 
its  vigour  and  decision,  in  the  clearness  with  which  it 
traced  our  maladies  to  the  heart's  alienation  from  God  ; 
but  most  of  all,  in  the  remedy  which  it  applied,  the 
new  principle  of  faith  in  Christ.  The  surgeon's  knife 
lays  bare  the  root  of  the  disease  ;  and  the  physician's 
hand  pours  in  the  healing  balm. 

Let  us  observe  at  the  outset  that  St  Paul  deals  with 
the  actual  and  pressing  temptations  of  his  readers. 
He  recalls  what  they  had  been,  and  forbids  them  to  be 
such  again.  The  associations  and  habits  of  former  life, 
the  hereditary  force  of  evil,  the  atmosphere  of  Gentile 
society,  and  added  to  all  this,  as  we  discover  from 
chapter  v.  6,  the  persuasions  of  the  sophistical  teachers 
now  beginning  to  infest  the  Church,  tended  to  draw 
the  Asian  Christians  back  to  Gentile  ways  and  to  break 
down  the  moral  distinctions  that  separated  them  from 
the  pagan  world. 

Amongst  the  discarded  vices  of  the  forsaken  Gentile 
life,  the  following  are  here  distinguished  :  lying,  theft, 
anger,  idle  speech,  malice,  impurity,  greed.  These  may 
be  reduced  to  sins  of  temper,  of  word,  and  of  act. 
Let  us  discuss  them  in  the  order  in  which  they  are 
brought  before  us. 


292  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

I.  "The  falsehood"*  of  verse  25  is  the  antithesis 
of  "  the  truth  "  from  which  righteousness  and  hoHness 
spring  (ver.  24).  In  accepting  the  one,  Paul's  Gentile 
readers  "had  put  off"  the  other.  When  these  heathen 
converts  became  Christians,  they  renounced  the  great 
lie  of  idolatry,  the  system  of  error  and  deceit  on  v^^hich 
their  lives  were  built.  They  have  passed  from  the 
realm  of  illusion  to  that  of  truth.  "  Now,"  the  apostle 
says,  "  let  your  daily  speech  accord  with  this  fact :  you 
have  bidden  farewell  to  falsehood ;  speak  truth  each 
with  his  neighbour."  The  true  religion  breeds  truthful 
men ;  a  sound  faith  makes  an  honest  tongue.  Hence 
there  is  no  vice  more  hateful  than  Jesuitry,  nothing 
more  shocking  than  the  conduct  of  those  who  defend 
what  they  call  "  the  truth "  by  disingenuous  arts,  by 
tricks  of  rhetoric  and  the  shifts  of  an  unscrupulous 
partizanship.  "  Will  you  speak  unrighteously  for  God, 
and  talk  deceitfully  for  Him  ?  "  As  Christ's  truth  is  in 
me  cries  the  apostle,  when  he  would  give  the  strongest 
possible  assurance  of  the  fact  he  wishes  to  assert.f 
The  social  conventions  and  make-believes,  the  countless 
simulations  and  dissimulations  by  which  the  game  of 
life  is  carried  on  belong  to  the  old  man  with  his  lusts 
of  deceit,   to   the   universal   lie   that  runs   through  all 

*  Aio  dwode/JievoL  to  xpevSos.  Despite  the  commentators,  we  must 
hold  to  it  that  f^e  lie,  the  falsehood  is  objective  and  concrete  ;  not  lyingy 
or/a/j^/z^^t/ as  a  subjective  act,  habit,  or  quality, — which  would  have 
been  rather  \pev5o\oyia  (comp.  /j,(tjpo\oyia,  v.  4 ;  and  i  Tim.  iv.  2, 
\l/€v86\6y(jjp),  or  to  \pev5es.  So  in  Rom.  i.  25,  t6  \^eu5os  is  "the  [one 
great]  lie  "  which  runs  through  all  idolatry  ;  and  in  2  Thess.  ii.  1 1  it 
denotes  "the  lie"  which  Antichrist  imposes  on  those  ready  to  believe 
it, — viz.,  that  he  himself  is  God.  Accordingly,  we  take  the  participle 
cLKod^lxevoi  to  signify  not  what  the  readers  are  to  do,  but  what  they  had 
done  in  renouncing  heathenism.  The  apostle  requires  consistency : 
"  Since  you  are  now  of  the  truth,  be  truth-speaking  men." 

t  2  Cor.  1.  18,  19,  xi.  10. 


iv.25— V.6.]  DISCARDED   VICES.  293 

ungodliness  and  unrighteousness,  which  is  in  the  last 
analysis  the  denial  of  God. 

St  Paul  applies  here  the  words  of  Zechariah  viii.  16, 
in  which  the  prophet  promises  to  restored  Israel  better 
days  on  the  condition  that  they  should  "speak  truth 
each  with  his  neighbour,  and  judge  truth  and  the 
judgement  of  peace  in  their  gates.  And  let  none  of  you," 
he  continues,  ''imagine  evil  in  his  heart  against  his 
neighbour  ;  and  love  no  false  oath.  For  all  these  things 
do  I  hate,  saith  the  Lord."  Such  is  the  law  of  the  New 
Covenant  life.  No  doubt,  St  Paul  is  thinking  of  the 
intercourse  of  Christians  with  each  other  when  he 
quotes  this  command  and  adds  the  reason,  "  For  we 
are  members  one  of  another T  But  the  word  neighbour^  as 
Jesus  showed,  has  in  the  Christian  vocabulary  no  limited 
import ;  it  includes  the  Samaritan,  the  heathen  man  and 
pubHcan.  When  the  apostle  bids  his  converts  ''  Follow 
what  is  good  towards  one  another,  and  towards  all " 
(i  Thess.  V.  15),  he  certainly  presumes  the  neighbourly 
obligation  of  truthfulness  to  be  no  less  comprehensive. 

Believers  in  Christ  represent  a  communion  which  in 
principle  embraces  all  men.  The  human  race  is  one 
family  in  Christ.  For  any  man  to  lie  to  his  fellow  is, 
virtually,  to  lie  to  himself.  It  is  as  if  the  eye  should 
conspire  to  cheat  the  hand,  or  the  one  hand  play 
false  to  the  other.  Truth  is  the  right  which  each  man 
claims  instinctively  from  his  neighbour ;  it  is  the  tacit 
compact  that  binds  together  all  intelligences.  Without 
neighbourly  and  brotherly  love  perfect  truthfulness  is 
scarcely  possible.  ''Self-respect  will  never  destroy 
self-seeking,  which  will  always  find  in  self-interest 
a  side  accessible  to  the  temptations  of  falsehood " 
(Harless). 

2.   Like   the   first  precept,    the    second  is   borrowed 


294  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


from  the  Old  Testament  and  shaped  to  the  uses  of  the 
New.  *^  Be  ye  angry  ^  and  sin  not":  so  the  words  of 
Psalm  iv.  4  stand  in  the  Greek  version  and  in  the 
margin  of  our  Revised  Bible,  where  we  commonly  read, 
"  Stand  in  awe,  and  sin  not.  Commune  with  your  own 
heart  upon  your  bed,  and  be  still."  The  apostle's 
further  injunction,  that  anger  should  be  stayed  before 
nightfall,  accords  with  the  Psalmist's  words  ;  the  calming 
effect  of  the  night's  quiet  the  apostle  anticipates  in  the 
approach  of  evening.  As  the  day's  heat  cools  and  its 
strain  is  relaxed,  the  fires  of  anger  should  die  down. 
With  the  Jews,  it  will  be  remembered,  the  new  day 
began  at  evening.  Plutarch,  the  excellent  heathen 
morahst  contemporary  with  St  Paul,  gives  this  as  an 
ancient  rule  of  the  Pythagoreans  :  "  If  at  any  time  they 
happened  to  be  provoked  by  anger  to  abusive  language, 
before  the  sun  set  they  would  take  each  other's  hands 
and  embracing  make  up  their  quarrel."  If  Paul  had 
heard  of  this  admirable  prescription,  he  would  be 
delighted  to  recognize  and  quote  it  as  one  of  those 
many  facts  of  Gentile  life  which  **  show  the  work  of  the 
law  written  in  their  hearts"  (Rom.  ii.  15).  The  passion 
which  outlives  the  day,  on  which  the  angry  man  sleeps 
and  that  wakes  with  him  in  the  morning,  takes  root  in 
his  breast ;  it  becomes  a  settled  rancour,  prompting  ill 
thoughts  and  deeds. 

There  is  no  surer  way  of  tempting  the  devil  to  tempt 
us  than  to  brood  over  our  wrongs.  Every  cherished 
grudge  is  a  **  place  given "  to  the  tempter,  a  new 
entrenchment  for  the  Evil  One  in  his  war  against  the 
soul,  from  which  he  may  shoot  his  "  fire-tipped  darts  " 
(vi.  16).  Let  us  dismiss  with  each  day  the  day's  vexa- 
tions, commending  as  evening  falls  our  cares  and  griefs 
to  the  Divine  compassion  and  seeking,  as  for  ourselves. 


iv.25— V.  6.]  DISCARDED    VICES.  295 

SO  for  those  who  may  have  done  us  wrong  forgiveness 
and  a  better  mind.  We  shall  rise  with  the  coming  light 
armed  with  new  patience  and  charity,  to  bring  into  the 
world's  turmoil  a  calm  and  generous  wisdom  that  will 
earn  for  us  the  blessing  of  the  peace-makers,  who  shall 
be  called  sons  of  God. 

Still  the  apostle  says  :  "  Be  angry,  and  sin  not."  He 
does  not  condemn  anger  in  itself,  nor  wholly  forbid 
it  a  place  within  the  breast  of  the  saint.  Wrath  is 
a  glorious  attribute  of  God, — perilous,  indeed,  for  the 
best  of  men ;  but  he  who  cannot  be  angry  has  no 
strength  for  good.  The  apostle  knew  this  holy 
passion,  the  flame  of  Jehovah  that  burns  unceasingly 
against  the  false  and  foul  and  cruel.  But  he  knew 
its  dangers — how  easily  an  ardent  soul  kindled  to 
exasperation  forgets  the  bounds  of  wisdom  and  love  ; 
how  strong  and  jealous  a  curb  the  temper  needs,  lest 
just  indignation  turn  to  sin,  and  Satan  gain  over' us  a 
double  advantage,  first  by  the  wicked  provocation  and 
then  by  the  uncontrolled  resentment  it  excites. 

3.   From  anger  we  pass  to  theft. 

The  eighth  commandment  is  put  here  in  a  form 
indicating  that  some  of  the  apostle's  readers  had  been 
habitual  sinners  against  it.  Literally  his  words  read  : 
'^  Let  him  that  steals  play  the  thief  no  more."  The 
Greek  present  participle  does  not,  however,  necessarily 
imply  a  pursuit  now  going  on,  but  an  habitual  or 
characteristic  pursuit,  that  by  which  the  agent  was 
known  and  designated  :  "  Let  the  thief  no  longer  steal !  " 
From  the  lowest  dregs  of  the  Greek  cities — from  its 
profligate  and  criminal  classes — the  gospel  had  drawn 
its  converts  (comp.  i  Cor.  vi.  9-I1).  In  the  Ephesian 
Church  there  were  converted  thieves  ;  and  Christianity 
had  to  make  of  them  honest  workmen. 


296  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  words  of  verse  28,  addressed  to  a  company  of 
thieves,  vividly  show  the  transforming  effect  of  the 
gospel  of  Christ :  *'  Let  him  toil,  working  with  his  hands 
what  is  good,  that  he  may  have  wherewith  to  give  to 
him  that  is  in  need."  The  apostle  brings  the  loftiest 
motives  to  bear  instantly  upon  the  basest  natures,  and 
is  sure  of  a  response.  He  makes  no  appeal  to  self- 
interest,  he  says  nothing  of  the  fear  of  punishment, 
nothing  even  of  the  pride  of  honest  labour.  Pity  for 
their  fellows,  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  and  generosity 
is  to  set  those  pilfering  and  violent  hands  to  unaccus- 
tomed toil.  The  appeal  was  as  wise  as  it  was  bold. 
Utilitarianism  will  never  raise  the  morally  degraded. 
Preach  to  them  thrift  and  self-improvement,  show  them 
the  pleasures  of  an  ordered  home  and  the  advantages 
of  respectability,  they  will  still  feel  that  their  own  way 
of  life  pleases  and  suits  them  best.  But  let  the  divine 
spark  of  charity  be  kindled  in  their  breast — let  the  man 
have  love  and  pity  and  not  self  to  work  for,  and  he  is 
a  new  creature.-  His  indolence  is  conquered  ;  his  mean- 
ness changed  to  the  noble  sense  of  a  common  manhood. 
Love  never  faileth. 

4.  We  have  passed  from  speech  to  temper,  and  from 
temper  to  act ;  in  the  warning  of  verses  29,  30  we 
come  back  to  speech  again. 

We  doubt  whether  corrupt  talk  is  here  intended.  That 
comes  in  for  condemnation  in  verses  2  and  3  of  the  next 
chapter.  The  Greek  adjective  is  the  same  that  is  used 
of  the  ''  worthless  fruit "  of  the  ''  worthless  [^good-for- 
nothing]  tree"  in  Matthew  xii.  33  ;  and  again  of  the 
"  bad  fish  "  of  Matthew  xiii.  48,  which  the  fisherman 
throws  away  not  because  they  are  corrupt  or  offensive, 
but  because  they  are  useless  for  food.  So  it  is  against 
inane,  inept  and  useless  talk  that  St  Paul  sets  his  face. 


-V.  6.]  DISCARDED    VICES.  297 


Jesus  said  that  "for  every  idle  word  men  must  give 
account  to  God  "  (Matt.  xii.  36). 

Jesus  Christ  laid  great  stress  upon  the  exercise  of 
the  gift  of  speech.  "  By  thy  words,"  He  said  to  His 
disciples,  "thou  shalt  be  justified,  and  by  thy  words 
condemned."  The  possession  of  a  human  tongue  is  an 
immense  responsibility.  Infinite  good  or  mischief  lies 
in  its  power.  (With  the  tongue  we  should  include  the 
pen,  as  being  the  tongue's  deputy.)  Who  shall  say 
how  great  is  the  sum  of  injury,  the  waste  of  time,  the 
irritation,  the  enfeeblement  of  mind  and  dissipation  of 
spirit,  the  destruction  of  Christian  fellowship  that  is  due 
to  thoughtless  speech  and  writing  ?  The  apostle  does 
not  simply  forbid  injurious  words,  he  puts  an  embargo 
on  all  that  is  not  positively  useful.  It  is  not  enough 
to  say  :  "  My  chatter  does  nobody  harm  ;  if  there  is  no 
good  in  it,  there  is  no  evil."  He  replies  :  "  If  you  cannot 
speak  to  profit,  be  silent  till  you  can." 

Not  that  St  Paul  requires  all  Christian  speech  to  be 
grave  and  serious.  Many  a  true  word  is  spoken  in  jest ; 
and  "  grace  "  may  be  "  given  to  the  hearers  "  by  words 
clothed  in  the  grace  of  a  genial  fancy  and  playful  wit, 
as  well  as  in  the  direct  enforcement  of  solemn  themes. 
It  is  the  mere  talk,  whether  frivolous  or  pompous — 
spoken  from  the  pulpit  or  the  easy  chair — the  incon- 
tinence of  tongue,  the  flux  of  senseless,  graceless,  un- 
profitable utterance  that  St  Paul  desires  to  arrest :  "  let 
it  not  proceed  out  of  your  mouth."  Such  speech  must 
not  "  escape  the  fence  of  the  teeth."  It  is  an  oppression 
to  every  serious  listener ;  it  is  an  injury  to  the  utterer 
himself.     Above  all,  it  "  grieves  the  Holy  Spirit." 

The  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  seal  of  God's 
possession  in  us ;  *  it  is  the  assurance  to  ourselves  that 

*  See  ch.  i.  13,  14,  and  18  (last  clause). 


298  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

we  are  His  sons  in  Christ  and  heirs  of  Hfe  eternal. 
From  the  day  it  is  affixed  to  the  heart,  this  seal  need 
never  be  broken  nor  the  witness  withheld,  ''  until  the 
day  of  redemption."  Dwelling  within  the  Church  as 
the  guard  of  its  communion,  and  loving  us  with  the 
love  of  God,  the  Spirit  of  grace  is  hurt  and  grieved  by 
foolish  words  coming  from  lips  that  He  has  sanctified. 
As  Israel  in  its  ancient  rebellions  "  vexed"  His  Holy 
Spirit"  (Isai.  Ixiii.  lo),  so  do  those  who  burden  Chris- 
tian fellowship  and  who  enervate  their  own  inward  life 
by  speech  without  worth  and  purpose.  As  His  fire  is 
quenched  by  distrust  (i  Thess.  v.  19),  so  His  love  is 
vexed  by  folly.  His  witness  grows  faint  and  silent ; 
the  soul  loses  its  joyous  assurance,  its  sense  of  the 
peace  of  God.  When  our  inward  life  thus  declines, 
the  cause  lies  not  unfrequently  in  our  own  heedless 
speech.  Or  we  have  listened  willingly  and  without 
reproof  to  "words  that  may  do. hurt,"  words  of  foolish 
jesting  or  idle  gossip,  of  mischief  and  backbiting.  The 
Spirit  of  truth  retires  affronted  from  His  desecrated 
temple,  not  to  return  until  the  iniquity  of  the  lips  is 
purged  and  the  wilful  tongue  bends  to  the  yoke  of 
Christ.  Let  us  grieve  before  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  He 
be  not  grieved  with  us  for  such  offences.  Let  us  pray 
evermore  :  "  Set  a  watch,  O  Jehovah,  before  my  mouth  ; 
keep  the  door  of  my  lips." 

5.  In  his  previous  reproofs  the  apostle  has  glanced 
in  various  ways  at  love  as  the  remedy  of  our  moral  dis- 
orders and  defects.  Falsehood,  anger,  theft,  misuse  of 
the  tongue  involve  disregard  of  the  welfare  of  others  ;  if 
they  do  not  spring  from  positive  ill-will,  they  foster  and 
aggravate  it.  It  is  now  time  to  deal  directly  with  this 
evil  that  assumes  so  many  forms,  the  most  various  of 
our  sins  and  companion  to  every  other  :  "  Let  all  bitter- 


iv.25— V.  6.]  DISCARDED    VICES.  299 

ness,  and  wrath,  and  anger,  and  clamour,  and  railing  be 
put  away  from  you,  with  all  malice." 

The  last  of  these  terms  is  the  most  typical.  Malice 
is  badness  of  disposition,  the  aptness  to  envy  and  hatred, 
which  apart  from  any  special  occasion  is  always  ready 
to  break  out  in  bitterness  and  wrath.  Bitterness  is 
malice  sharpened  to  a  point  and  directed  against  the 
exasperating  object.  Wrath  and  anger  are  synonymous, 
the  former  being  the  passionate  outburst  of  resentment 
in  rage,  the  latter  the  settled  indignation  of  the  aggrieved 
soul  :  this  passion  was  put  under  restraint  already  in 
verses  26,  27.  Clamour  and  railing  give  audible  expres- 
sion to  these  and  their  kindred  tempers.  Clamour  is 
the  loud  self-assertion  of  the  angry  man,  who  will  make 
every  one  hear  his  grievance  ;  while  the  railer  carries 
the  war  of  the  tongue  into  his  enemy's  camp,  and  vents 
his  displeasure  in  abuse  and  insult. 

These  sins  of  speech  were  rife  in  heathen  society ; 
and  there  were  some  amongst  Paul's  readers,  doubtless, 
who  found  it  hard  to  forgo  their  indulgence.  Espe- 
cially difficult  was  this  when  Christians  suffered  all 
manner  of  evil  froni  their  heathen  neighbours  and 
former  friends ;  it  cost  a  severe  struggle  to  be  silent 
and  *'  keep  the  mouth  as  with  a  bridle  "  under  fierce 
and  malicious  taunts.  Never  to  return  evil  for  evil  and 
railing  for  railing,  but  contrariwise  blessing, — this  was 
one  of  the  lessons  most  difficult  to  flesh  and  blood. 

Kindness  in  act,  tenderheartedness  of  feeling  are  to 
take  the  place  of  maUce  with  its  brood  of  bitter 
passions.  Where  injury  used  to  be  met  with  reviling 
and  insult  retorted  in  worse  insult,  the  men  of  the 
new  life  will  be  found  "  forgiving  one  another,  even 
as  God  in  Christ  forgave  "  them.  Here  we  touch  the 
spring  of  Christian  virtue,  the  master  motive   in   the 


300  THE   EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

apostle's  theory  of  life.  The  cross  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  centre  of  Pauline  ethics,  as  of  Pauline  theology. 
The  sacrifice  of  Calvary,  while  it  is  the  ground  of  our 
salvation,  supplies  the  standard  and  incentive  of  moral 
attainment.     It  makes  life  an  imitation  of  God. 

The  commencement  of  the  new  chapter  at  this  point 
makes  an  unfortunate  division  ;  for  its  first  two  verses 
are  in  close  consecution  with  the  last  verse  of  chapter  iv. 
By  kindness  and  pitifulness  of  heart,  by  readiness  to 
forgive,  God's  ''  beloved  children "  will  "  show  them- 
selves imitators  "  of  their  Father.  The  apostle  echoes 
the  saying  of  his  Master,  in  which  the  law  of  His 
kingdom  was  laid  down  :  *'  Love  your  enemies,  and 
do  good,  and  lend  never  despairing ;  and  your  reward 
shall  be  great,  and  you  shall  be  called  children  of  the 
Highest :  for  He  is  kind  to  the  thankless  and  evil. 
Be  ye  therefore  pitiful,  as  your  Father  is  pitiful" 
(Luke  vi.  35,  36).  Before  the  cross  of  Jesus  was  set 
up,  men  could  not  know  how  much  God  loved  the 
world  and  how  far  He  was  ready  to  go  in  the  way 
of  forgiveness.  Yet  Christ  Himself  saw  the  same  love 
displayed  in  the  Father's  daily  providence.  He  bids 
us  imitate  Him  who  makes  His  sun  shine  and  His 
rain  fall  on  the  just  and  unjust,  on  the  evil  and  the 
good.  To  the  insight  of  Jesus,  nature's  impartial 
bounties  in  which  unbelief  sees  only  moral  indiffer- 
ence, spoke  of  God's  compassion ;  they  proceed  from 
the  same  love  that  gave  His  Son  to  taste  death  for 
every  man. 

In  chapter  iv.  32 — v.  2  the  Father's  love  and  the 
Son's  self-sacrifice  are  spoken  of  in  terms  precisely 
parallel.  They  are  altogether  one  in  quality.  Christ 
does  not  by  His  sacrifice  persuade  an  angry  Father 
to  love  His  children  ;  it  is  the  Divine  compassion  in 


iv.  25— V.6.]  DISCARDED    VICES.  301 

Christ  that  dictates  and  carries  into  effect  the  sacrifice. 
At  the  same  time  it  was  "  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice 
to  God."  God  is  love  ;  but  love  is  not  everything  in 
God.  Justice  is  also  Divine,  and  absolute  in  its  own 
realm.  Law  can  no  more  forgo  its  rights  than  love 
forget  its  compassions.  Love  must  fulfil  all  right- 
eousness ;  it  must  suffer  law  to  mark  out  its  path  of 
obedience,  or  it  remains  an  effusive,  ineffectual  senti- 
ment, helpless  to  bless  and  save.  Christ's  feet  followed 
the  stern  and  strait  path  of  self-devotion  ;  "  He  humbled 
Himself  and  became  obedient,"  He  was  "  born  under 
law."  And  the  law  of  God  imposing  death  as  the 
penalty  for  sin,  which  shaped  Christ's  sacrifice,  made 
it  acceptable  to  God.  Thus  it  was  "an  odour  of  a 
sweet  smell." 

Hence  the  love  which  follows  Christ's  example,  is 
love  wedded  with  duty.  It  finds  in  an  ordered  devotion 
to  the  good  of  men  the  means  to  fulfil  the  all-holy 
Will  and  to  present  in  turn  its  "  offering  to  God." 
Such  love  will  be  above  the  mere  pleasing  of  men, 
above  sentimentalism  and  indulgence ;  it  will  aim 
higher  than  secular  ideals  and  temporal  contentment 
It  regards  men  in  their  kinship  to  God  and  obligation 
to  His  law,  and  seeks  to  make  them  worthy  of  their 
calling.  All  human  duties,  for  those  who  love  God, 
are  subordinate  to  this ;  all  commands  are  summed 
up  in  one  :  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself" 
The  apostle  pronounced  the  first  and  last  word  of  his 
teaching  when  he  said  :  Walk  in  love,  as  tlu  Christ 
also  loved  us. 

6.  Above  all   others,  one   sin   stamped    the   Gentile 
world  of  that  time  with  infamy, — its  uncleanness. 

St  Paul  has  stigmatized  this  already  in  the  burning 
words  of  verse   19.      There  we   saw  this   vice   in   its 


302  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

intrinsic  loathsomeness ;  here  it  is  set  in  the  light 
of  Christ's  love  on  the  one  hand  (ver.  2),  and  of  the 
final  judgement  on  the  other  (vv.  5,  6).  Thus  it  is 
banished  from  the  Christian  fellowship  in  every  form 
— even  in  the  lightest,  where  it  glances  from  the  lips 
in  words  of  jest :  ^^  Fornication  and  all  uncleanness, 
let  it  not  even  be  named  among  you."  Along  with 
"filthiness,  fooHsh  talk  and  jesting"  are  to  be  heard 
no  more.  Passing  from  verse  2  to  verse  3  by  the 
contrastive  But^  one  feels  how  repugnant  are  these 
things  to  the  love  of  Christ.  The  perfume  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Calvary,  so  pleasing  in  heaven,  sweetens 
our  life  on  earth;  its  grace  drives  wanton  and  selfish 
passions  from  the  heart,  and  destroys  the  pestilence 
of  evil  in  the  social  atmosphere.  Lust  cannot  breathe 
in  the  sight  of  the  cross. 

The  "  good-for-nothing  speech "  of  chapter  iv.  29 
comes  up  once  more  for  condemnation  in  the  foolish 
speech  and  jesting  of  this  passage.  The  former  is 
the  idle  talk  of  a  stupid,  the  latter  of  a  clever  man. 
Both,  under  the  conditions  of  heathen  society,  were 
tainted  with  foulness.  Loose  speech  easily  becomes 
low  speech.  Wit,  unchastened  by  reverence,  finds  a 
tempting  field  for  its  exercise  in  the  delicate  relations 
of  life,  and  displays  its  skill  in  veiled  indecencies  and 
jests  that  desecrate  the  purer  feelings,  while  they  avoid 
open  grossness. 

St  Paul's  word  for  ** jesting"  is  one  of  the  singu- 
lar terms  of  this  epistle.  By  etymology  it  denotes 
a  well-turned  style  of  expression,  the  versatile  speech 
of  one  who  can  touch  lightly  on  many  themes  and 
aptly  blend  the  grave  and  gay.  This  social  gift  was 
prized  amongst  the  polished  Greeks.  But  it  was  a 
faculty  so  commonly  abused,  that  the  word  describing 


iv.  25— V.6.]  DISCARDED   VICES.  303 


it  fell  into  bad  odour  :  it  came  to  signify  banter  and 
persiflage;  and  then,  still  worse,  the  kind  of  talk  here 
indicated,— the  wit  whose  zest  lies  in  its  flavour  of 
impurity.  "  The  very  profligate  old  man  in  the  Miles 
Gloriosus  of  Plautus  (iii.  i.  42-52),  who  prides  himself, 
and  not  without  reason,  upon  his  wit,  his  elegance 
and  refinement  [cavillator  lepidus,  facetus]^  is  exactly 
the  6VTpd7r6\o<;.  And  keeping  in  mind  that  evrpaireXla, 
being  only  once  expressly  and  by  name  forbidden  in 
Scripture,  is  forbidden  to  Ephesians,  it  is  not  a  little 
notable  to  find  him  urging  that  all  this  was  to  be 
expected  from  him,  being  as  he  was  an  Ephesian  by 
birth  :— 

Post  Ephesi  sum  natus  ;  non  enitn  in  Apulia,  non  Animula;."  * 

In  place  of  senseless  prating  and  wanton  jests — 
things  unbefitting  to  a  rational  creature,  much  more 
to  a  saint — the  Asian  Greeks  are  to  find  in  thanksgiving 
employment  for  their  ready  tongue.  St  Paul's  rule 
is  not  one  of  mere  prohibition.  The  versatile  tongue 
that  disported  itself  in  unhallowed  and  frivolous  utter- 
ance, may  be  turned  into  a  precious  instrument  for 
God's  service.  Let  the  fire  of  Divine  love  touch  the 
jester's  lips,  and  that  mouth  will  show  forth  His  praise 
which  once  poured  out  dishonour  to  its  Maker  and 
shame  to  His  image  in  man. 

7.  At  the  end  of  the  Ephesian  catalogue  of  vices, 
as  at  the  beginning  (iv.  19),  uncleanness  is  joined 
with  covetousness,  or  greed. 

This,  too,  is  "  not  even  to  be  named  amongst  you, 
as  becometh  saints."  Money  !  property  !  these  are  the 
words  dearest  and  most  familiar  in  the  mouths  of  a 
large  class  of  men  of  the  world,  the  only  themes  on 


*  Trench  :  N,  T.  Synonyms,  §  xxxiv. 


304  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

which  they  speak  with  Hvely  interest.  But  Christian 
lips  are  cleansed  from  the  service  both  of  Behal  and 
of  Mammon.  When  his  business  follows  the  trader 
from  the  shop  to  the  fireside  and  the  social  circle,  and 
even  into  the  Church,  when  it  becomes  the  staple  subject 
of  his  conversation,  it  is  clear  that  he  has  fallen  into 
the  low  vice  of  covetousness.  He  is  becoming,  instead 
of  a  man,  a  money-making  machine,  an  "  idolater  "  of 

"Mammon,  the  least  erected  spirit  that  fell 
From  heaven." 

The  apostle  classes  the  covetous  man  with  the  forni- 
cator and  the  unclean,  amongst  those  who  by  their 
worship  of  the  shameful  idols  of  the  god  of  this  world 
exclude  themselves  from  their  "  inheritance  in  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  and  of  God." 

A  serious  warning  this  for  all  who  handle  the  world's 
wealth.  They  have  a  perilous  war  to  wage,  and  an 
enemy  who  lurks  for  them  at  every  step  in  their  path. 
Will  they  prove  themselves  masters  of  their  business, 
or  its  slaves  ?  Will  they  escape  the  golden  leprosy, 
— the  passion  for  accumulation,  the  lust  of  property  ? 
None  are  found  more  dead  to  the  claims  of  humanity 
and  kindred,  none  further  from  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
and  God,  none  more  ''  closely  wrapped "  within  their 
"  sensual  fleece "  than  rich  men  who  have  prospered 
by  the  idolatry  of  gain.  Dives  has  chosen  and  won 
his  kingdom.  He  '^  receives  in  his  lifetime  his  good 
things  " ;   afterwards  he  must  look  for  "  torments." 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS. 

"  We  are  members  one  of  another.  .   .  . 

**  Let  the  thief  labour  .  .  .  that  he  may  have  whereof  to  give  to  him 
that  hath  need.   ... 

"  Grieve  not  the  Holj  Spirit  of  God,  in  whom  ye  were  sealed  untc 
the  day  of  redemption.  .  .   . 

"  Forgive  each  other,  even  as  God  also  in  Christ  forgave  you.  Be 
ye  imitators  of  God,  as  beloved  children,  and  walk  in  love,  even  as 
the  Christ  also  loved  you,  and  gave  Himself  up  for  us,  an  offering  and 
a  sacrifice  to  God.  .  .   . 

"No  fornicator,  nor  unclean  person,  nor  covetous  man,  which  is  an 
idolater,  hath  any  inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  and  God." — 
EpH.  iv.  25 — v.  6.  • 

THE  homily  that  we  have  briefly  reviewed  in  the 
last  Chapter  demands  further  consideration.  It 
affords  a  striking  and  instructive  example  of  St  Paul's 
method  as  a  teacher  of  morals,  and  makes  an  important 
contribution  to  evangelical  ethics.  '  The  common  vices 
are  here  prohibited  on  specifically  Christian  grounds. 
The  new  nature  formed  in  Christ  casts  them  off  as 
alien  and  dead  things ;  they  are  the  sloughed  skin  of 
the  old  life,  the  discarded  dress  of  the  old  man  who 
was  slain  by  the  cross  of  Christ  and  lies  buried  in  His 
grave. 

The  apostle  does  not  condemn  these  sins  as  being 
contrary  to  God's  law :  that  is  taken  for  granted.  But 
the  legal  condemnation  was  ineffectual  (Rom.  viii.  3). 

305  20 


3o6  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  wrath  revealed  from  heaven  against  man's  un- 
righteousness had  left  that  unrighteousness  unchastened 
and  defiant.  The  revelation  of  law,  approved  and 
echoed  by  conscience,  taught  man  his  guilt;  it  could 
do  no  more.  All  this  St  Paul  assumes ;  he  builds  on 
the  ground  of  law  and  its  acknowledged  findings. 

Nor  does  the  apostle  make  use  of  the  principles  of 
philosophical  ethics,  which  in  their  general  Torm  were 
famifiar  to  him  as  to  all  educated  men  of  the  day.  He 
says  nothing  of  the  rule  of  nature  and  right  reason,  of 
the  intrinsic  fitness,  the  harmony  and  beauty  of  virtue ; 
nothing  of  expediency  as  the  guide  of  life,  of  the 
inward  contentment^  that  comes  from  well-doing,  of 
the  wise  calculation  by  which  happiness  is  determined 
and  the  lower  is  subordinated  to  the  higher  good.  St 
Paul  nowhere  discountenances  motives  and  sanctions 
of  this  sort ;  he  contravenes  none  of  the  lines  of  argu- 
ment by  which  reason  is  brought  to  the  aid  of  duty, 
and  conscience  vindicates  itself  against  passion  and 
■false  self-interest.  Indeed,  there  are  'maxims  in  his 
teaching  which  remind  us  of  each  of  the  two  great 
schools  of  ethics,  and  that  make  room  in  the  Christian 
theory  of  life  both  for  the  philosophy  of  experience  and 
that  of  intuition.  The  true  theory  recognizes,  indeed, 
the  experimental  and  evolutional  as  well  as  the  fixed 
and  intrinsic  in  morality,  and  supplies  their  synthesis. 

But  it  is  not  the  apostle's  business  to  adjust  his 
position  to  that  of  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  or  to  unfold 
a  new  philosophy  ;  but  to  teach  the  way  of  the  new 
life.  His  Gentile  disciples  had  been  untruthful,  pas- 
sionate in  temper,  covetous,  licentious:  the  gospel 
which  he  preached  had  turned  them  from  these  sins 
to  God ;  from  the  same  gospel  he  draws  the  motives 
and  convictions  which  are  to  shape  their  future  life  and 


iv.25— V.6.]  DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS.  307 

to  give  to  the  new  spirit  within  them  its  fit  expression. 
St  Paul  has  no  quarrel  with  ethical  science^  much  less 
with  the  inspired  law  of  his  fathers ;  but  both  had 
proved  ineffectual  to  keep  men  from  iniquity,  or  to 
redeem  them  fallen  into  it.  Above  them  both,  above 
all  theories  and  all  external  rules  he  sets  the  law  of 
the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ. 

The  originality  of  Christian  ethics,  we  repeat,  does 
not  lie  in  its  detailed  precepts.  There  is  not  one,  it 
may  be,  even  of  the  noblest  maxims  of  Jesus  that  had 
not  been  uttered  by  some  previous  moralist.  With 
the  New  Testament  in  our  hands,  it  may  be  possible 
to  collect  from  non-Christian  -sources — from  Greek 
philosophers,  from  the  Jewish  Talmud,  from  Egyptian 
sages  and  Hindoo  poets,  from  Buddha  and  Confucius 
— a  moral  anthology  which  thus  sifted  out  of  the 
refuse  of  antiquity,  like  particles  of  iron  drawn  by  the 
magnet,  may  bear  comparison  with  the  ethics  of  Chris- 
tianity. If  Christ  is  indeed  the  Son  of  man,  we 
should  expect  Him  to  gather  into  one  all  that  is 
highest  in  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  mankind. 
Addressing  the  Athenians  on  Mars'  Hill,  the  apostle 
could  appeal  to  '*  certain  of  your  own  poets  "  in  support 
of  his  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  The  noblest 
minds  in  all  ages  witness  to  Jesus  Christ  and  prove 
themselves  to  be,  in  some  sort,  of  His  kindred. 

"  They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee  ; 
And  Thou,  O  Lord,   art  more  than  they  ! " 

It  is  Christ  in  us,  it  is  the  personal  fellowship  of  the 
soul  with  Him  and  with  the  living  God  through  Him, 
that  forms  the  vital  and  constitutive  factor  of  Chris- 
tianity. Here  is  the  secret  of  its  moral  efficacy.  The 
Christ  is  the  centre  root  and  of  the  race ;   He  is  the 


3o8  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


image  of  God  in  which  we  were  made.  The  hfe-blood 
of  mankind  flowed  in  Him  as  in  its  heart,  and  poured 
forth  from  Him  as  from  its  fountain  in  sacrifice  for 
the  common  sin.  Jesus  gathered  into  Himself  and 
restored  the  virtue  of  humanity  broken  into  a  thousand 
fragments ;  but  He  did  much  m.ore  than  this.  While 
He  re-created  in  His  personal  character  our  lost  man- 
hood, by  His  death  and  resurrection  He  has  gained  for 
that  ideal  a  transcendent  power  that  seizes  upon  men 
and  regenerates  and  transforms  them.  ''  With  unveiled 
face  beholding  in  the  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  we 
are  changed  into  the  same  image,  [receiving  the  glory 
that  we  see]  as  from  the  Lord  of  the  Spirit "  (2  Cor. 
iii.  18). 

There  is,  therefore,  an  evangelical  ethics,  a  Christian 
science  of  life.  "  The  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in 
Christ  Jesus"  has  a  system  and  method  of  its  own. 
It  has  a  rational  solution  and  explanation  to  render 
for  our  moral  problems.  But  its  solution  is  given, 
as  St  Paul  and  as  his  Master  loved  to  give  it,  in 
practice,  not  in  theory.  It  teaches  the  art  of  living  to 
multitudes  to  whom  the  names  of  ethics  and  moral 
science  are  unknown.  Those  who  understand  the 
method  of  Christ  best  are  commonly  too  busy  in  its 
practice  to  theorize  about  it.  They  are  physicians 
tending  the  sick  and  the  dying,  not  professors  in  some 
school  of  medicine.  Yet  professors  have  their  use,  as 
well  as  practitioners.  The  task  of  developing  a  Chris- 
tian science  of  life,  of  exhibiting  the  truth  of  revelation  in 
its  theoretical  bearings  and  its  relations  to  the  thought 
of  the  age,  forms  a  part  of  the  practical  duties  of  the 
Church  and  touches  deeply  the  welfare  of  souls.  For 
other  times  this  work  has  been  nobly  accomplished 
by  Christian  thinkers.     Shall  we  not  pray  the  Lord  of 


iv.  25— V.6.]  DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS.  309 


the  harvest  that  He  will  thrust  forth  into  this  field  fit 
labourers ;  that  He  will  raise  up  men  mighty  through 
God  to  overthrow  every  high  thing  that  exalts  itself 
against  His  knowledge,  and  wise  to  build  up  to  the 
level  of  the  times  the  great  fabric  of  Christian  ethics 
and  discipline  ? 

There  emerge  in  this  exhortation  four  distinct  prin- 
ciples, which  lay  at  the  basis  of  St  Paul's  views  of 
life  and  conduct. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  the  fundamental  truth  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God.  "  Be  imitators  of  God,"  he  writes, 
"  as  beloved  children."  And  in  chapter  iv.  24 :  "  Put 
on  the  new  man,  which  zuas  created  after  GodT 

Man's  life  has  its  law,  for  it  has  its  source,  in  the 
nature  of  the  Eternal.  Behind  our  race-instincts  and 
the  laws  imposed  on  us  in  the  long  struggle  for 
existence,  behind  those  imperatives  of  practical  reason 
involved  in  the  structure  of  our  inteUigence,  is  the 
presence  and  the  active  will  of  Almighty  God  our 
heavenly  Father.  His  image  we  see  in  the  Son  of 
man. 

Here  is  the  fountainhead  of  truth,  from  which  the 
two  great  streams  of  philosophical  thought  upon  morals 
have  diverged.  If  man  is  the  child  of  a  Being 
absolutely  good,  then  moral  goodness  belongs  to  the 
essence  of  his  nature  ;  it  is  discoverable  in  the  instincts 
of  his  reason  and  will.  Were  not  our  nature  warped 
by  sin,  such  reasoning  must  have  commanded  imme- 
diate assent  and  led  to  consistent  and  self-evident 
results.  Again,  if  man  is  the  child  of  God,  the  finite 
of  the  Infinite,  his  moral  character  must,  presumably, 
have  been  in  the  beginning  germinal  rather  than  com- 
plete, needing — even  apart  from  sin  and  its  malforma- 


3IO  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

tions — development  and  education,  the  discipline  of  a 
fatherly  providence,  inculcating  the  lessons  and  form- 
ing the  habits  v^hich  belong  to  his  ripe  manhood  and 
full-grown  stature.  Intuitional  morals  bear  witness 
to  the  God  of  creation  ;  experimental  morals  to  the 
God  of  providence  and  history.  The  Divine  Father- 
hood is  the  keystone  of  the  arch  in  which  they  meet. 

The  command  to  "be  imitators  of  God"  makes 
personality  the  sovereign  element  in  life.  If  conscious- 
ness is  a  finite  and  passing  phenomenon,  if  God  be 
but  a  name  for  the  sum  of  the  impersonal  laws  that 
regulate  the  universe,  for  the  "stream  of  tendency" 
in  the  worlds,  Father  and  love  are  meaningless  terms 
applied  to  the  Supreme  and  religion  dissolves  into 
an  impalpable  mist.  Is  the  universe  governed  by 
personal  will,  or  by  impersonal  force  ?  Is  reason,  or 
is  gravitation  the  index  to  the  nature  of  the  Absolute  ? 
This  is  the  vital  question  of  modern  thought.  The 
latter  is  the  answer  given  by  a  large,  if  not  a  pre- 
ponderant body  of  philosophical  opinion  in  our  own 
day, — as  it  was  given,  virtually,  by  the  natural  philo- 
sophers of  Greece  in  the  dawn  of  science.  Man's 
triumphs  over  nature  and  the  splendour  of  his  dis- 
coveries in  the  physical  realm  bewilder  his  reason. 
The  scientists,  like  other  conquerors,  have  been 
intoxicated  with  victory.  The  universe,  it  seemed, 
was  about  to  yield  to  them  its  last  secrets;  they  were 
prepared  to  analyze  the  human  soul  ,and  resolve  the 
conception  of  God  into  its  material  elements.  Religion 
and  conscience,  however,  prove  to  be  intractable 
subjects  in  the  physical  laboratory ;  they  are  coming 
out  of  the  crucible  unchanged  and  refined.  We  are 
able  by  this  time  to  take  a  more  sober  measure  of  the 
possibilities  of  the  scientific  method,  and  to  see  what 


iv.25— V.6.]  DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS.  3II 

inductive  logic  and  natural  selection  can  do  for  us, 
and  what  they  cannot  do.  We  can  walk  in  the  light 
of  the  new  revelation,  without  being  dazzled  by  it. 
Things  are  less  altered  than  we  thought.  The  old 
boundaries  reappear.  The  spirit  resumes  its  place, 
and  rules  a  wider  realm  than  before.  Reason  refuses 
to  be  the  victim  of  its  own  success,  and  to  immolate 
itself  for  the  deification  of  material  law.  '  "  Forasmuch 
as  we  are  God's  offspring,"  we  ought  not  to  think, 
and  we  will  not  think  that  the  Godhead  is  Hke  to  bHnd 
forces  and  reasonless  properties  of  matter.  Love, 
thought,  will  in  us  raise  our  being  above  the  realm  of 
the  impersonal ;  and  these  faculties  point  us  upward 
to  Him  from  whom  they  came,  the  Father  of  the  spirits 
of  all  flesh. 

The  great  tide  of  joy,  the  victorious  energy  which 
the  sense  of  God's  love  brings  into  the  life  of  a 
Christian,  is  evidence  of  its  reality.  The  believer  is 
a  child  walking  in  the  hght  of  his  Father's  smile — 
dependent,  ignorant,  but  the  object  of  an  Almighty 
love.  A  thousand  tokens  speak  to  him  of  the  Divine 
care  ;  his  tasks  and  trials  are  sweetened  by  the  con- 
fidence that  they  are  appointed  for  wise  ends  beyond 
his  present  knowledge.  To  another  in  that  same 
house  there  is  no  heavenly  Father,  no  unseen  hand- 
that  guides,  no  gleam  of  a  brighter  and  purer  day 
lighting  up  its  dull  chambers.  There  are  human 
companions,  weak,  erring  and  wearying  like  oneself. 
There  is  work  to  do,  with  the  night  coming  swiftly  ; 
and  the  brave  heart  girds  itself  to  duty,  finding  in  the 
service  of  man  its  motive  and  employ ment^but,  alas, 
with  how  poor  success  and  how  faint  a  hope  ! 

It  is  not  the  loss  of  strength  for  human  service, 
nor  the  dying  out  of  joy  which  unbelief  entails,  that  is 


312  THE   EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

its  chief  calamity  ;  but  the  unbeHef  itself.  The  sun 
in  the  soul's  heaven  is  put  out.  The  personal  relation- 
ship to  the  Supreme  which  gave  dignity  and  worth  to 
our  individual  being,  which  imparted  sacredness  and 
enduring  power  to  all  other  ties,  is  destroyed.  The 
heart  is  orphaned ;  the  temple  of  the  spirit  desolate. 
The  mainspring  of  life  is  broken. 

**  Make  haste  to  answer  me,  O  Jehovah  ;  my  spirit  faileth  ! 
Hide  not  Thy  face  from  me, 
Lest  I  be  like  unto  them  that  go  down  into  the  pit  !  " 

II.  The  solidarity  oj  mankind  in  Christ  furnishes  the 
apostle  with  a  powerful  lever  for  raising  the  ethical 
standard  of  his  readers.  The  thought  that  "  we  are 
members  one  of  another"  forbids  deceit.  That  he 
may  "have  whereof  to  give  to  the  needy"  is  the 
purpose  that  provokes  the  thief  to  industry.  The 
desire  to  "give  grace"  to  the  hearers  and  to  '^  build 
them  up  "  in  truth  and  goodness  imparts  seriousness 
and  elevation  to  social  intercourse.  The  irritations 
and  injuries  we  inflict  on  each  other,  with  or  without 
purpose,  furnish  occasion  for  us  to  "  be  kind  one  to 
another,  good-hearted,  forgiving  yourselves  " — for  this 
is  the  expression  the  apostle  uses  in  chapter  iv.  32, 
and  in  Colossians  iii.  13.  Self  is  so  merged  in  the 
community,  that  in  dealing  censure  or  forgiveness  to  an 
offending  brother  the  Christian  man  feels  as  though 
he  were  deaUng  with  himself — as  though  it  were  the 
hand  that  forgave  the  foot  for  tripping,  or  the  ear 
that  pardoned  some  blunder  of  the  eye. 

Showing-grace  is  what  the  apostle  literally  says  here, 
speaking    both    of    human    and    Divine    forgiveness.* 

*  XapL^ofievoL  eavroh,  KadCo$  kol  6  Geos  iu  Xpiarip  ixap'-co-To  v/mv. 
So  in  Col.  ii.  13,  iii.  13  ;  Rom.  viii.  32  ;  2  Cor.  ii.  7,  10  ;  Luke  vii. 
42,  43- 


iv.  25— V.6.]  DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS.  313 

In  this  lies  the  charm  and  power  of  true  forgiveness. 
The  forgiver  after  the  order  of  grace  does  not  pardon 
Hke  a  judge  moved  by  magnanimity  or  pity  for  trans- 
gressors, but  in  love  to  his  own  kind  and  desire  for 
their  amendment.  He  identifies  himself  with  the 
wrong-doer,  weighs  his  temptation  and  all  that  drew 
him  into  error.  Such  forgiveness,  while  it  never  ignores 
the  wrong,  admits  every  qualifying  circumstance  and 
just  extenuation.  '  This  is  the  kind  of  pardon  that 
touches  the  sinner's  heart ;  for  it  goes  to  the  heart  of 
the  sin,  isolating  it  from  all  other  feelings  and  condi- 
tions that  are  not'  sin  ;  it  takes  the  wrong  upon  itself 
in  understanding  and  perception ;  it  puts  its  finger 
upon  the  aching,  festering  spot  where  the  criminality 
lies  and  applies  to  that  its  healing  balm. 

"  Even  as  God  in  Christ  forgave  you."  And  how 
did  God  forgive  ?  Not  by  a  grand  imperial  decree,  as 
of  some  monarch  too  exalted  to  resent  the  injuries  of 
men  or  to  inquire  into  their  futile  proceedings.  Had 
such  forgiveness  been  possible  to  Divine  justice,  it 
could  have  v^rrought  in  us  no  real  salvation.  Our 
forgiveness  is  that  of  God  in  Christ.  The  Forgiver 
has  sat  down  by  the  prisoner's  side,  has  felt  his  misery 
and  the  force  of  his  temptations,  and  in  everything  but 
the  actual  sin  has  made  Himself  one  with  the  sinner, 
even  to  bearing  the  extreme  penalty  of  his  guilt.  In 
the  act  of  making  sacrifice,  Jesus  prayed  for  those 
that  slew  Him :  "  Father,  forgive  them ;  they  know 
not  what  they  do  ! "  This  intercession  breathed  the 
spirit  of  the  new  forgiveness.  There  is  a  real  re- 
mission of  sins,  a  release  granted  justly  and  upon 
due  satisfaction ;  but  it  is  the  act  of  justice  charged 
with  love,  of  a  justice  as  tender  and  considerate  as  it 
is  strong,  and  which  eagerly  takes  account  of  all  that 


314  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

bespeaks  in  the  offender  a  possibility  of  better  things. 
It  is  a  forgiveness  that  does  justice  to  the  humanity 
as  well  as  the  criminality  in  the  sinner. 

To  proclaim  by  word  and  deed  this  forgiveness  of 
God  to  the  sinful  world  is  the  vocation  of  the  Church 
And  where  she  does  thus  declare  it,  by  whatever  means 
or  ministry,  Christ's  promise  to  her  is  verified  :  "  Whose- 
soever sins  ye  remit,  they  are  remitted  to  them."  We 
may  so  reconcile  men  to  ourselves,  as  to  bring  them 
back  to  God.  Has  some  one  done  you  a  wrong  ?  there 
is  your  opportunity  of  saving  a  soul  from  death  and 
hiding  a  multitude  of  sins.  Thus  Christ  used  the 
great  wrong  we  all  did  Him.  It  is  your  privilege  to 
show  the  wrong-doer  that  you  and  he  are  made  one 
by  the  blood  of  Christ. 

"  Walk  in  love,"  St  Paul  says,  "  as  the  Christ  also 
loved  us  and  gave  up  Himself  for  us  a  sacrifice." 
When  the  apostle  writes  the  Christ,  he  points  us  along 
the  whole  line  of  the  revelation  of  the  cross.*  We 
think  of  the  Christhood  of  Jesus,  of  the  Christliness 
of  such  love  as  this.  Christ's  was  a  representative 
and  exemplary  love,  with  its  forerunners  and  its 
followers  all  walking  in  one  path.  ^'The  Christ 
loved  and  gave^' )  for  love  that  does  not  give,  that 
prompts  to  no  effort  and  puts  itself  to  no  sacrifice,  is 
but  a  luxury  of  the  heart, — useless  and  even  selfish. 
And  He  ''gave  up  Himself" — the  only  gift  that  could 
suffice.  The  rich  who  bestow  many  gifts  in  furtherance 
of  humanitarian  and  religious  work  and  still  do  not 
bestow  themselves,  their  sympathetic  thought,  their 
presence  and  personal  aid,  are  withholding  the  best 
thing,  the  one  thing  required  to  make  their  bounties 
efficacious.      In    what   we   give   and   forgive,   it   is   the 

*  Comp.  pp.  47,  ^2y  169,  189. 


IV.  25— V.  6.]  DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS.  '  315 

accent  of  sympathy,  the  giving  of  the  heart  with  it  that 
adds  grace  to  the  act.  "Though  I  dole  out  all  my 
goods,  though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have 
not  love,  it  profiteth  me  nothing."  We  do  a  thousand 
things  to  serve  and  benefit  our  fellow-men,  and  yet 
evade  the  real  sacrifice, — which  is  simply  to  love  them. 

In  studying  this  epistle,  we  have  felt  increasingly 
that  the  Church  is  the  centre  of  humanity.  The  love 
born  and  nourished  in  the  household  of  faith  goes  out 
into  the  world  with  a  universal  mission.  The  solidarity 
of  moral  interests  that  is  realized  there,  embraces  all 
the  kindreds  of  the  earth.  The  incarnation  of  Christ 
knits  all  flesh  into  one  redeemed  family.  The  continents 
and  races  of  mankind  are  members  one  of  another, 
with  Jesus  Christ  for  head.  We  are  brothers  and  sisters 
of  humanity :  He  our  elder  brother,  and  God  our 
common  Father  in  heaven, — His  Father  and  ours. 

Auguste  Comte  writes  in  his  System  of  Positive 
Polity  :  "  The  promises  of  supernatural  religion  appealed 
exclusively  to  man's  selfish  instincts. . .  .  The  sympathetic 
instincts  found  no  place  in  the  theological  synthesis."* 
It  would  be  impossible  to  affirm  anything  more  com- 
pletely at  variance  with  the  truth,  anything  more 
absolutely  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  Christ  and  the 
theological  synthesis  of  the  apostles.  And  yet  it  was 
upon  this  ground  that  the  great  French  thinker  re- 
nounced Christianity,  proposing  his  new  rehgion  of 
humanity  as  a  substitute  for  a  selfish  and  effete  super- 
jiaturalism  !  Why  did  he  not  go  to  the  New  Testament 
itself  to  find  out  what  Christianity  means  ?  "To  com- 
bine permanently  concert  with  independence,"  Comte 
excellently  says,  "  is  the  capital  problem  of  society, 
a    problem    which    religion    alone   can    solve,   by    love 

*  Vol.  iv.,  pp.  22,  41  (Eng.  Trans.). 


316  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

primarily,  then  by  faith  on  a  basis  of  love."  *  Precisely 
so ;  and  this  is  the  solution  offered  by  Jesus  Christ. 
His  self-sacrificing  love  is  the  basis  on  which  our  faith 
rests;  and  that  faith  w^orks  by  love  in  all  those  who 
truly  possess  it.  This  is  the  evangelical  theory.  The 
morale  of  the  Church,  it  is  true,  has  fallen  shamefully 
below  its  doctrine;  but  this  doctrine  is,  after  all,  the 
one  fruitful  and  progressive  moral  force  in  the  world ; 
and  it  is  certain  to  be  carried  into  effect. 

In  the  darkest  hour  of  Israel's  oppression  and  of 
international  hate,  one  of  her  great  prophets  thus 
described  the  triumph  of  supernatural  religion  :  "In 
that  day  shall  Israel  be  the  third  with  Egypt  and 
Assyria,  a  blessing  in  the  midst  of  the  earth ;  for  that 
the  Lord  of  hosts  hath  blessed  them,  saying.  Blessed 
be  Egypt  my  people,  and  Assyria  the  work  of  my 
hands,  and  Israel  my  inheritance"  (Isai.  xix.  24,  25). 
This  is  our  programme  still. 

III.  Another  of  St  Paul's  ruling  ideas  lying  at  the 
basis  of  Christian  ethics,  is  his  conception  of  man's 
future  destiny.  The  apostle  warns  his  readers  that 
they  "  grieve  not  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  whom  they  were 
sealed  till  the  day  of  redemption."  He  tells  them  that 
"the  impure  and  the  covetous  have  no  inheritance  in 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  and  God." 

There  is  thus  disclosed  a  world  beyond  the  world, 
a  life  growing  out  of  hfe,  an  eternal  and  invisible 
kingdom  of  whose  possession  the  Spirit  that  lives  in 
Christian  men  is  the  earnest  and  firstfruits.  This 
kingdom  is  the  joint  inheritance  of  the  sons  of  God, 
brethren  with  Christ  and  in  Christ,  who  are  conformed 
to  His  image  and  found  worthy  to  "  stand  before  the 
Son  of  man."     Those  are  excluded  from  the  inheritance, 

*  Comte,  vol.  iv.,  p.  30. 


iv.25— V.6.]  DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS.  317 

who  by  their  moral  nature  are  aHen  to  it :  '^  Without 
are  dogs,  sorcerers,  whoremongers,  idolaters,  and  every 
one  that  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie."  This  revelation  has 
had  a  most  powerful  influence  on  the  progress  of  ethics. 
It  has  given  a  momentous  importance  to  individual 
conduct,  a  new  grandeur  to  the  moral  issues'  of  the 
present  life.  ''  Man's  life,"  viewed  in  the  light  of  the 
Christian  gospel,  ''has  duties  that  are  alone  great,  that 
go  up  to  Heaven,  and  down  to  Hell."  The  tangled 
skein  is  at  last  to  be  unravelled,  the  mysterious  problem 
of  mortal  life  will  have  its  solution  at  the  judgement- 
seat  of  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  true  that  the  wicked  flourish  and  spread  them- 
selves like  green  trees  in  the  sunshine ;  and  the 
covetous  boast  of  their  hearts'  desire.  To  see  this 
was  the  trial  of  ancient  faith  ;  and  the  good  man  had 
to  charge  himself  constantly  that  he  should  not  fret 
because  of  evil-doers.  It  required  an  heroic  faith 
to  believe  in  God's  kingdom  and  righteousness,  when 
the  visible  course  of  things  made  all  against  them, 
and  there  was  no  clear  light  beyond.  God's  saints 
had  to  learn  first  that  God  is  Himself  the  sufficient 
good,  and  must  be  trusted  to  do  right.  But  this 
was  the  faith  of  defence  rather  than  of  victory, — of 
endurance,  not  enthusiasm.  In  the  knowledge  of 
Christ's  victory  over  death  and  entrance  on  our  be- 
half into  the  heavenly  world,  "  in  hope  of  life  eternal 
which  God  who  cannot  lie  hath  promised,"  men  have 
fought  against  their  own  sins,  have  struggled  for 
the  right  and  spent  themselves  to  save  their  fellows 
with  a  vigour  and  success  never  witnessed  before,  and 
in  numbers  far  exceeding  those  that  all  other  creeds 
and  systems  have  enlisted  in  the  holy  cause  of  humanity. 

Human  reason  had  guessed  and  hope  had  dreamed 


3i8  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS 

of  the  soul's  immortality.  Christianity  gives  this  hope 
certainty,  and  adds  to  it  the  assurance  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  body.  Man's  entire  nature  is  thus  redeemed. 
Chastity  takes  its  due  place  amongst  the  virtues,  and 
becomes  the  mark  of  a  Christian  as  distinguished  from 
a  pagan  life.  "  The  body  is  not  for  fornication,  but  for 
the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  for  the  body.  God  who  raised 
up  the  Lord  Jesus,  will  raise  us  also  through  His 
pov^er.  Your  bodies  are  limbs  of  Christ,  ...  a  temple 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  v^hich  you  have  from  God.  .  .  .  Glorify 
God  in  your  body."  So  St  Paul  exhorts  the  Christians 
of  Corinth  (i  Ep.  vi.),  living  in  the  centre  and  shrine 
of  heathen  vice.  This  doctrine  of  the  sanctity  of  the 
body  has  been  the  salvation  of  the  family.  It  has  saved 
civilization  from  perishing  through  sexual  corruption, 
and  is  still  our  chief  defence  against  this  fearful  evil. 

Our  bodily  dress,  we  now  learn,  is  one  with  the  spirit 
that  it  infolds.  We  shall  lay  it  aside  only  to  resume 
it, — transfigured,  but  with  a  form  and  impress  con- 
tinuous with  its  present  being.  This  identical  self,  the 
same  both  in  its  outward  and  inward  personality,  will 
appear  before  the  tribunal  of  Christ,  that  it  may  ''receive 
the  things  done  in  the  body."  This  announcement 
gives  reasonableness  and  distinctness  to  the  expectation 
of  future  judgement.  The  ju<lgement  assumes,  with  its 
solemn  grandeur,  a  miatter-of-fact  reality,  an  immediate 
bearing  on  the  daily  conduct  of  life,  which  lends 
a  powerful  reinforcement  to  the  conscience,  while  it 
supplies  a  fitting  and  glorious  conclusion  to  our  course 
as  moral  beings. 

IV.  Finally,  the  atonement  of  the  cross  stamps  its 
own  character  and  spirit  on  the  entire  ethics  of 
Christianity.  The  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  unity  and 
solidarity  of  mankind,  the  issues  of  eternal  life  or  death 


iv.25— V.6.]  DOCTRINE  AND  ETHICS.  319 

awaiting  us  in  the  unseen  world — all  the  great  factors 
and  fundamentals  of  revealed  religion  gather  about  the 
cross  of  Christ ;  they  lend  to  it  their  august  significance, 
and  gain  from  it  new  import  and  impressiveness. 

The  fact  that  Christ  "gave  Himself  up  for  us  an 
offering  and  sacrifice  to  God  " — gave  Himself,  as  it  is 
put  elsewhere,  "  for  our  sins  " — throws  an  awful  light 
upon  the  nature  of  human  transgression.  The  blood 
spilt  in  the  strife  with  our  sin  and  shed  to  wash  o,ut 
its  stain,  reveals  its  foulness  and  malignity.  All  that 
inspired  men  had  taught,  that  good  men  had  believed 
and  felt  and  penitent  men  confessed  in  regard  to  the 
evil  of  human  sin,  is  more  than  verified  by  the  sacrifice 
which  the  Holy  One  of  God  has  undergone  in  order  to 
put  it  away.  It  was  felt  that  "the  blood  of  bulls  and 
goats  could  never  take  away  sins,"  that  the  sacrifices 
man  could  offer  for  himself,  or  the  creatures  on  his 
behalf,  were  ineffectual ;  the  guilt  was  too  real  to  be 
expiated  in  .this  fashion,  the  wound  too  deep  to  be 
healed  by  those  poor  appliances.  But  who  had  sus- 
pected that  such  a  remedy  as  this  was  needed,  and 
forthcoming?  How  deep  the  resentment  of  eternal 
Justice  against  the  transgressions  of  men,  if  the  blood 
of  God's  own  Son  alone  could  make  propitiation  !  How 
rank  the  offence  against  the  Divine  holiness,  if  to  purge 
its  abomination  the  vessel  containing  the  most  sweet 
fragrance  of  His  sinless  nature  must  be  broken  !  What 
tears  of  contrition,  what  cleansing  fires  of  hate  against 
our  own  sins,  what  scorn  of  their  baseness,  what  stern 
resolves  against  them  are  awakened  by  the  sight  of 
the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! 

This  negative  side  of  the  ethical  bearing  of  Christ's 
sacrifice  is  implied  in  the  words  of  the  apostle  in  the 
second    verse,   and  in   the  contrast   indicated  between 


320  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

its  sweet  savour  and  those  unclean  things  whose  very 
names  it  should  banish  from  our  midst  (ver.  3).  On 
its  positive  effects — the  love  and  self-devotion  it  inspires, 
the  conformity  of  our  lives  to  its  example — we  have 
dwelt  already.  Let  us  add,  however,  that  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  demands  from  us,  above  all,  devotion  to  Christ 
Himself.  Our  first  duty  as  Christians  is  to  love  Christ, 
to  serve  and  follow  Christ.  "'  He  died  for  all,"  says 
the  apostle,  "  that  the  living  should  live  no  longer  to 
themselves,  but  to  Him  that  died  for  them  and  rose 
again."  When  Mary  of  Bethany  poured  on  the  Saviour's 
head  her  box  of  precious  ointment,  the  Master  accepted 
the  tribute  and  approved  the  act ;  and  the  poor  have 
been  gainers  by  it  a  thousand  times  the  pence  which 
Judas  deemed  wasted  on  the  head  he  was  watching  to 
betray.  There  is  no  conflict  between  the  claims  of 
Christ  and  those  of  philanthropy,  between  the  needs 
of  His  worship  and  the  needs  of  the  destitute  and 
suffering  in  our  streets.  Every  new  subject  won  to 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  is  another  helper  won  for  His 
poor.  Every  act  of  love  rendered  to  Him  deepens  the 
channel  of  sympathy  by  which  relief  and  blessing  come 
to  sorrowful  humanity. 

Let  the  gospel  of  Christ's  kingdom  be  preached  in 
word  and  deed  to  all  nations,  let  the  love  of  Christ  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  great  masses  of  mankind, 
and  the  time  of  the  world's  salvation  will  be  come.  Its 
sin  will  be  hated,  forsaken,  forgiven.  Its  social  evils 
will  be  banished ;  its  weapons  of  war  turned  to  plough- 
shares and  pruning  hooks.  Its  scattered  races  and 
nations  will  be  re-united  in  the  obedience  of  faith,  and 
formed  into  one  Christian  confederacy  and  common- 
wealth of  the  peoples,  a  peaceful  kingdom  of  the  Son 
of  God's  love. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE  LIGHT. 

*'Be  not  ye  therefore  partakers  with  them  ;  for  ye  were  once  dark- 
ness,  but  are  now  light  in  the  Lord ;  walk  as  children  of  light  (for  the 
fruit  of  the  light  is  in  all  goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth),  proving 
what  is  well-pleasing  unto  the  Lord  ;  and  have  no  fellowship  with  the 
unfruitful  works  of  darkness,  but  rather  even  reprove  them.  For  the 
things  which  are  done  by  them  in  secret  it  is  a  shame  even  to  speak  of  ; 
but  all  things  when  they  are  reproved  are  made  manifest  by  the  light :' 
for  everything  that  is  made  manifest  is  light.  Wherefore  He  saith  :— 
'  Awake,  thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the  dead  ; 
And  the  Christ  shall  shine  upon  thee.'  " 

Epii.  v.  7-14. 

'T^HE  contrast  between  the  Christian  and  heathen 
J-  way  of  life  is  now,  finally,  to  be  set  forth  under 
St  Paul's  familiar  figure  of  the  light  and  the  darkness. 
He  bids  his  Gentile  readers  not  to  be  ''joint-partakers 
with  them  "—with  the  sons  of  disobedience  upon  whom 
God's  wrath  is  coming  (ver.  6)— for  he  has  hailed 
them  alread}^,  in  chapter  iii.  6,  as  "joint-partakers  of 
the  promise  in  Christ  Jesus  through  the  gospel." 
''  Once "  indeed  they  shared  in  the  lot  of  the  dis- 
obedient ;  but  for  them  the  darkness  has  past,  and  the 
true  light  now  shineth. 

In  wrath  or  promise,  in  hope  of  hfe  eternal  or  in 
the  fearful  looking  for  of  judgement  they,  and  we,  must 
partake.    This  future  participation  depends  upon  present 

321  21 


322  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

character.  '^  Do  not,"  the  apostle  entreats,  *^  cast  in 
your  lot  again  with  the  unclean  and  covetous.  Their 
ways  you  have  renounced,  and  their  doom  you  have 
exchanged  for  the  heritage  of  the  saints.  Let  no 
vain  words  deceive  you  into  supposing  that  you  may 
keep  your  new  inheritance,  and  yet  return  to  your 
old  sins.  Show  yourselves  worthy  of  your  calling. 
Walk  as  children  of  the  light,  and  you  will  possess  the 
eternal  kingdom."  Each  man  carries  with  him  into 
the  next  state  of  being  the  entail  of  his  past  life.  That 
heritage  depends  on  his  own  choice ;  yet  not  upon  his 
individual  will  working  by  itself,  but  on  the  grace  and 
will  of  God  working  with  him,  as  that  grace  is  accepted 
or  rejected.  He  has  light  :  he  must  walk  in  it ;  and 
he  will  reach  the  realm  of  light.  Thus  the  apostle, 
in  verses  7  and  8,  concludes  his  warning  against 
relapse  into  heathen  sin. 

Verses  9  and  10  delineate  the  character  of  the  children 
of  the  light:  verses  11- 14  set  forth  their  influence  tipon 
the  surrounding  darkness.  Into  these  two  divisions  the 
exposition  of  this  paragraph  naturally  falls. 

I.  ''The  fruit  of  the  light ^^  (not  of  the  Spirit)  is  the 
true  text  of  verse  9,  as  it  stands  in  the  older  Greek 
copies,  Versions,  and  Fathers.  Calvin  showed  his 
judgement  and  independence  in  preferring  this  reading 
to  that  of  the  received  Greek  text.  Similarly  Bengel,* 
and  most  of  the  later  critics.  The  sentence  is  paren- 
thetical, and  contains  a  singular  and  instructive  figure. 

*  Mr.  Wesley  adopted  this  and  other  emendations  from  Bengel, 
"that  great  light  of  the*  Christian  world,"  in  the  translation  accom- 
panying his  Explanatory  Notes  upon  the  New  Testament.  He  there 
supplied  the  Methodist  preachers  with  many  of  the  most  valuable 
improvements  made  in  the  Revised  Version,  a  hundred  years  before 
the  time. 


V.  7-14]  THE   CHILDREN  OF  THE  LIGHT.  323 

It  is  one  of  those  sparks  from  the  anvil,  in  which 
great  writers  not  unfrequently  give  us  their  finest  utter- 
ances,— sentences  that  get  a  pecuhar  point  from  the 
eagerness  with  which  they  are  struck  off  in  the  heat 
and  clash  of  thought,  as  the  mind  reaches  forward  to 
some  thought  l3dng  beyond.  The  clause  is  an  epitome, 
in  five  words,  of  Christian  virtue,  whose  qualities,  origin 
and  method  are  all  defined.  It  sums  up  exquisitely 
the  moral  teaching  of  the  epistle.  Galatians  v.  22,  23 
{the  fruit  of  the  Spirit)  and  Philippians  iv.  8  (  Whatso- 
ever things  are  true^  etc.)  are  parallel  to  this  passage,  as 
Pauline  definitions,  equally  perfect,  of  the  virtues  of  a 
Christian  man.  This  has  the  advantage  of  the  others 
in  brevity  and  epigrammatic  point. 

"You  are  light  in  the  Lord,"  the  apostle  said;  ''walk 
as  children  of  the  light."  But  his  readers  might  ask  : 
"  What  does  this  mean  ?  It  is  poetry :  let  us  have 
it  translated  into  plain  prose.  How  shall  we  walk  as 
children  of  the  light?  Show  us  the  path."— 'T  will  tell 
you,"  the  apostle  answers :  ''the  fruit  of  the  light  is  in 
all  goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth.  Walk  in 
these  ways  ;  let  your  hfe  bear  this  fruit ;  and  you  will 
be  true  children  of  the  light  of  God.  So  living,  you 
will  find  out  what  it  is  that  pleases  God,  and  how 
joyful  a  thing  it  is  to  please  Him  (ver.  10).  Your  life 
will  then  be  free  from  all  complicity  with  the  works  of 
darkness.  It  will  shine  with  a  brightness  clear  and 
penetrating,  that  will  put  to  shame  the  works  of  dark- 
ness and  transform  the  darkness  itself.  It  will  speak 
with  a  voice  that  all  must  hear,  bidding  them  awake 
from  the  sleep  of  sin  to  see  in  Christ  their  light  of 
life."  Such  is  the  setting  in  which  this  delightful 
definition  stands. 

But  it  is  more  than  a  definition.     While  this  sentence 


324  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS, 

declares  what  Christian  virtue  is,  it  signifies  also 
whence  it  comes,  how  it  is  generated  and  maintained. 
It  asserts  the  connexion  that  exists  between  Christian 
character  and  Christian  faith.  The  fruit  cannot  be 
grown  without  the  tree,  any  more  than  the  tree  can 
grow  soundly  without  yielding  its  proper  fruit.  Right 
is  the  fruit  of  light. 

The  principle  that  rehgion  is  the  basis  of  moral 
virtue,  is  one  that  many  moraUsts  disputed  in  St  Paul's 
time;  and  it  has  fallen  into  some  discredit  in  our 
own.  In  philosophical  theory,  and  to  a  large  extent 
in  popular  maxim  and  belief,  it  is  assumed  that  faith 
and  morals,  character  and  creed,  are  not  only  distinct 
but  independent  things  and  that  there  is  no  necessary 
connexion  between  the  two.  Christians  are  themselves 
to  blame  for  this  fallacy,  through  the  discrepancy  not 
seldom  visible  between  their  creed  and  life.  Our 
narrowness  of  view  and  the  harshness  of  our  ethical 
judgements  have  helped  to  foster  this  grave  error. 

Great  Christian  teachers  have  spoken  of  the  virtues 
of  the  heathen  as  ''  splendid  sins."  But  Christ  and 
His  apostles  never  said  so.  He  said :  ^'  Other  sheep 
I  have,  which  are  not  of  this  fold."  And  they  said  : 
"  In  every  nation  he  that  feareth  God  and  worketh 
righteousness,  is  accepted  of  Him."  The  Christian 
creed  has  no  jealousy  in  regard  to  human  excellence. 
''  Whatsoever  things  are  true  and  honourable  and  just 
and  pure,"  wherever  and  in  whomsoever  they  are 
found,  our  faith  honours  and  delights  in  them,  and 
accepts  them  to  the  utmost  of  their  worth.  But  then 
it  claims  them  all  for  its  own, — as  the  fruit  of  the  one 
"true  light  which  lighteth  every  man."  Wherever 
this  fruit  appears,  we  know  that  that  light  has  been, 
though  its  ways  are  past  finding  out.     Through  secret 


V.  7-I4-]  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE  LIGHT.  325 


crevices,  by  subtle  refractions  and  multiplied  reflections, 

the  true  light  reaches  many  a  life  lying  far  outside  its 
visible  course. 

All  goodness  has  one  source  ;  for,  said  Jesus,  "  there 
is  none  good  but  one,  that  is  God."  The  channels 
may  be  tortuous,  obstructed  and  obscure  :  the  stream 
is  always  one.  There  is  nothing  more  touching,  and 
nothing  more  encouraging  to  our  faith  in  God's  universal 
love  and  His  will  that  all  men  should  be  saved,  than  to 
see,  as  we  do  sometimes  under  conditions  most  adverse 
and  in  spots  the  most  unlikely,  features  of  moral  beauty 
and  Christlike  goodness  appearing  like  springs  in  the 
desert  or  flowers  blooming  in  Alpine  snows, — signs  of 
the  universal  hght, 

*  *  Which  yet  in  the  absolutest  drench  of  dark 
Ne'er  wants  its  witness,  some  stray  beauty-beam 
To  the  despair  of  hell  !  " 

The  action  of  God's  grace  in  Christ  is  by  no  means 
limited  to  the  sphere  of  its  recognized  working.  All 
the  more  earnestly  on  this  account  do  we  vindicate 
this  grace  against  those  who  deny  its  necessity  or 
the  permanence  of  its  moral  influence.  The  fruit, 
in  the  main,  they  approve.  But  they  would  cut  down 
the  plant  from  which  it  came  ;  they  seek  to  quench 
the  light  under  wjiich  it  grew.  They  are  like  men 
who  should  take  •  you  to  some  lofty  tree  that  has 
flourished  for  ages  rooted  in  the  rock,  and  who  should 
say  :  "  See  how  wide  its  branches  and  how  stout  its 
stem,  how  firmly  it  stands  upon  its  native  soil !  Let 
us  cut  it  loose  from  those  dark  and  ugly  roots — that 
mysterious  theology,  those  superstitions  of  the  past. 
The  human  mind  has  outgrown  them.  Virtue  can 
support  itself  on  its  own  proper  basis.     It  is  time  to 


326  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

assert  the  dignity  of  man,  and  to  proclaim  the  inde- 
pendence of  morality."  If  these  men  have  their  way, 
and  if  European  society  renounces  the  authority  of 
God,  how  quickly  will  that  tree  of  the  Lord's  planting, 
the  vast  growth  of  Christian  virtue  and  beneficence, 
wither  to  its  topmost  bough ;  and  the  next  storm  will 
bring  it  to  the  ground,  with  all  its  stately  strength  and 
summer  beauty.  UnbeHef  in  God  lays  the  axe  at  the 
root  of  human  society.  Our  life — the  life  of  individuals, 
of  families  and  nations — is  rooted  in  the  unseen  and 
hid  with  Christ  in  God.  Thence  it  draws  its  vitality 
and  virtue,  through  those  spiritual  fibres  by  which  we 
are  linked  to  God  and  lay  hold  on  eternal  life.  Since 
Christ  Jesus  our  forerunner  entered  the  heavenly  places, 
the  anchor  of  human  hopes  has  been  cast  within  the 
veil ;  if  that  anchor  drags,  there  is  no  other  that  will 
hold.  The  rocks  are  plain  to  see  on  which  our  richly 
freighted  ship  of  life  will  founder.  Without  the 
rehgion  of  Jesus  Christ,  our  civilization  is  not  worth  a 
hundred  years'  purchase. 

Moral  effects  do  not  follow  upon  their  causes  as 
rapidly  as  physical  effects  :  they  follow  as  certainly. 
We  live  largely  upon  the  accumulated  ethical  capital 
of  our  forefathers.  When  that  is  spent,  we  are  left  to 
our  intrinsic  poverty  of  soul,  to  our  faithlessness  and 
feebleness.  The  scepticism  of  one  generation  bears 
fruit  in  the  immorahty  of  the  next,  or  the  next  after 
that ;  the  unbelief  and  cynicism  of  the  teacher  in  the 
vice  of  his  disciple.  Such  fruit  of  blasting  and  mildew 
the  decay  of  faith  has  never  failed  to  bear. 

The  corresponding  truth  will  be  at  once  acknowledged. 
There  is  no  real  religion  without  virtue.  If  the  godly 
man  is  not  a  good  man,  if  he  is  not  a  sincere  and  pure- 
hearted  man,  "  that  man's  religion  is  vain  "  :  no  matter 


V.7-I40  THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  LIGHT.  327 

what  his  professions  or  his  emotions,  no  matter  what 
his  services  to  the  Church.  He  is  one  of  those  to 
whom  Jesus  Christ  will  say  :  *'  I  know  you  not ;  depart 
from  me,  all  ye  that  work  iniquity."  There  is  a  flaw 
in  him  somewhere,  a  rift  within  the  lute  that  spoils  all 
its  music.  "A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  corrupt 
fruit." 

In  Christ's  garden  there  forms  in  clustered  beauty 
and  perfectness  the  ripe  growth  of  virtue,  which  in  the 
sunshine  of  His  love  and  under  the  freshening  breath 
of  His  Spirit  sends  forth  its  spices  and  '^  yieldeth  its 
fruit  every  month."  In  it  there  abide  goodness,  right- 
eousness, truth — these  three ;  and  who  shall  say  which 
of  them  is  greatest  ? 

I.  Goodness  stands  first,  as  the  most  visible  and 
obvious  form  of  Christian  excellence, — that  which  every 
one  looks  for  in  a  religious  man,  and  which  every  one 
admires  when  it  is  to  be  seen.  Righteousness,  regarded 
by  itself,  is  not  so  readily  appreciated.  There  is  some- 
thing austere  and  forbidding  in  it.  ''  For  a  righteous 
man  scarcely  would  one  die  " — you  respect,  even  revere 
him  ;  but  you  do  not  love  him  :  "but  for  the  good  man 
peradventure,  one  would  even  dare  to  die." 

Christian  goodness  is  the  sanctification  of  the  heart 
and  its  affections,  renewed  and  governed  by  the  love 
of  God  in  Christ.  It  is,  notwithstanding,  but  seldom 
inculcated  in  the  New  Testament;*  because  it  is  referred 
to  its  spring  and  principle  in  love.  Goodness  is  love' 
embodied.  Now  love,  as  the  Christian  knows  it,  is  of 
God.  "  We  love,"  says  the  apostle  John,  ''  because  He 
first  loved  us.  .  .  .  He  loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  to 

*  The  word  belongs  to  Paul's  vocabulary ;  it  is  found  besides  in 
2  Thess.  i.  II  ;  Rom.  xv.  14;  and  Gal.  V.  22.  See  the  Commentary 
on  this  last  epistle  in  the  Expositors  Bible,  pp.  384,  385. 


328  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins."  This  is  the  faith  that 
makes  good  men, — the  best  the  world  has  ever  known, 
the  best  that  it  holds  now.  Vanity,  selfishness,  evil 
temper  and  desire  are  shamed  and  burnt  out  of  the  soul 
by  the  holy  fire  of  the  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  In  the  v/arm,  tender  light  of  the  cross  the  heart 
is  softened  and  cleansed,  and  expanded  to  the  widest 
charity.  It  becomes  the  home  of  all  generous  instincts 
and  pure  affections.  So  "the  fruit  of  the  light  is  in 
all  goodness." 

2.  And  righteousness. 

This  second  and  central  definition  applies  a  searching 
test  to  all  spurious  forms  of  goodness,  superficial  or 
sentimental, — to  the  goodness  of  mere  good  manners, 
or  good  nature.  The  principle  of  righteousness,  fully 
understood,  includes  everything  in  moral  worth,  and 
is  often  used  to  denote  in  one  word  the  entire  fruit  of 
God's  grace  in  man.  For  righteousness  is  the  sancti- 
fication  of  the  conscience.  It  is  loyalty  to  God's 
holy  and  perfect  law.  It  is  no  mere  outward  keeping 
of  formal  rules,  such  as  the  legal  righteousness  of 
Judaism,  no  submission  to  necessity  or  calculation  of 
advantage?  :  it  is  a  love  of  the  law  in  a  man's  inmost 
spirit ;  it  is  the  quality  of  a  heart  one  with  that  law, 
reconciled  to  it  as  it  is  reconciled  to  God  Himself  in 
Jesus  Christ. 

At  the  bottom,  therefore,  righteousness  and  goodness 
are  one.  Each  is  the  counterface  and  complement  of 
the  other.  Righteousness  is  to  goodness  as  the  strong 
backbone  of  principle,  the  firm  hand  and  the  vigorous 
grasp  of  duty,  the  steadfast  foot  that  plants  itself  on  the 
eternal  ground  of  the  right  and  true  and  stands  against 
a  world's  assault.  Goodness  without  righteousness  is 
a   weak   and  fitful   sentiment  :   righteousness    without 


V.  7-14]  THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  LIGHT.  329 


goodness  is  a  dead  formality.  He  cannot  love  God 
or  his  neighbour  truly,  who  does  not  love  God's  law  ; 
and  he  knows  nothing  aright  of  that  law,  who  does 
not  know  that  it  is  the  law  of  love. 

This  also,  this  above  all  is  "the  fruit  of  the  light.'' 
Two  watchwords  we  have  from  the  lips  of  Jesus,  two 
mottoes  of  His  own  life  and  mission, — the  one  given 
at  the  end,  the  other  at  the  beginning  of  His  course  : 
^'  Greater  love  hath  none  than  this,  that  one  lay  down 
his  life  for  his  friends  "  ;  and,  "  Thus  it  becometh  us  to 
fulfil  all  righteousness"  By  a  double  flame  was  He 
consumed  a  sacrifice  upon  the  cross, — by  the  passion 
of  His  zeal  for  God's  righteousness;  and  by  the  passion 
of  His  pity  for  mankind.  In  that  twofold  light  we  see 
light,  and  become  ''  light  in  the  Lord."  Therefore  the 
fruit  of  the  light,  the  moral  product  of  a  true  faith  in  the 
gospel,  is  in  all  goodness  and  righteousness. 

There  is  a  danger  of  merging  the  latter  in  the  former 
of  these  attributes.  Evangelical  piety  is  credited  with 
an  excess  of  the  sentimental  and  emotional  disposition, 
cultivated  at  the  expense  of  the  more  sterling  elements 
of  character.  High  principle,  scrupulous  honour,  stern 
fidelity  to  duty  are  no  less  essential  to  the  image  of 
Christ  in  the  soul  than  are  warm  feehng  and  zealous 
devotion  to  His  service.  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous,  as 
His  apostles  loved  to  call  Him,  is  the  pattern  of  a  manly 
faith,  up  to  which  we  must  grow  in  all  things.  ^^  He  is 
the  propitiation  for  our  sins."  Never  was  there  an  act  of 
such  unswerving  integrity  and  absolute  loyalty  to  the 
law  of  right  as  the  sacrifice  of  Calvary.  God  forbid 
that  we  should  magnify  love  at  the  expense  of  law,  or 
make  good  feeling  a  substitute  for  duty. 

3.  Truth  comes  last  in  this  enumeration,  for  it  signi- 
fies the  inward  reality  and  depth  of  the  other  two. 


330  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Truth  does  not  mean  veracity  alone,  the  mere  truth  of 
the  lips.  Heathen  honesty  goes  as  far  as  this.  Men  of 
the  world  expect  as  much  from  each-  other,  and  brand 
the  liar  with  their  contempt.  Truth  of  words  requires 
a  reality  behind  itself.  The  acted  falsehood  is  excluded, 
the  hinted  and  intended  lie  no  less  than  that  expressly 
uttered.  Beyond  all  this,  it  is  the  truth  of  the  man  that 
God  requires — speech,  action,  thought,  all  consistent, 
harmonious  and  transparent,  with  the  light  of  God's 
truth  shining  through  them.  Truth  is  the  harmony 
of  the  inward  and  the  outward,  the  correspondence  of 
what  the  man  is  in  himself  with  that  which  he  appears 
and  wishes  to  appear  to  be. 

Now,  it  is  only  children  of  the  light,  only  men 
thoroughly  good  and  upright  who  can,  in  this  strict 
sense,  be  men  of  truth.  So  long  as  any  mahce  or 
iniquity  is  left  in  our  nature,  we  have  something  to 
conceal.  We  cannot  afford  to  be  sincere.  We  are 
compelled  to  pay,  by  very  shame,  the  degrading  tribute 
which  vice  renders  to  virtue,  the  homage  of  hypocrisy. 
But  find  a  man  whose  intellect,  whose  heart  and  will, 
tried  at  whatever  point,  ring  sound  and  true,  in  whom 
there  is  no  affectation,  no  make-believe,  no  pretence  or 
exaggeration,  no  discrepancy,  no  discord  in  the  music 
of  his  life  and  thought,  *'  an  Israelite  indeed,  in  whom 
is  no  guile " — there  is  a  saint  for  you,  and  a  man  of 
God ;  there  is  one  whom  you  may  ''  grapple  to  your 
soul  with  hoops  of  steel." 

Truth  is  the  hall-mark  of  entire  sanctification  ;  it  is 
the  highest  and  rarest  attainment  of  the  Christian  life. 
It  is  equally  the  charm  of  an  innocent,  unspoilt  child- 
hood, and  of  a  ripe  and  purified  old  age.  The  apostle 
John,  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  is  the  most 
perfect  embodiment,  after  his  Master,  of  this  consum- 


V.  7-I4-]  THE   CHILDREN  OF  THE  LIGHT, 


mating  grace.  In  him  righteousness  and  love  were 
blended  in  the  translucence  of  an  utter  simplicity  and 
truth. 

We  must  beware  of  giving  a  subjective  and  merely 
personal  aspect  to  this  divine  quality.  While  truth  is 
the  unity  of  the  outward  and  inward,  of  heart  and  act 
and  word  in  the  man,  it  is  at  the  same  time  the  agree- 
ment of  the  man  with  the  reality  of  things  as  they  exist 
in  God.  The  former  kind  of  truth  rests  upon  the 
latter;  the  subjective  upon  the  objective  order.  The 
truth  of  God  makes  us  true.  We  magnify  our  own 
sincerity,  until  it  becomes  vitiated  and  pretentious.  In 
our  eagerness  to  realize  and  express  our  own  convic- 
tions, we  give  too  little  pains  to  form  them  upon  a 
sound  basis  ;  we  make  a  great  virtue  of  speaking  out 
what  is  in  our  hearts,  but  take  small  heed  of  what 
comes  in  to  the  heart,  and  speak  out  of  a  loose  self- 
confidence  and  idolatry  of  our  own  opinions.  So  the 
Pharisees  were  true,  who  called  Christ  an  impostor. 
So  every  careless  slanderer,  and  scandalmonger  credu- 
lous of  evil,  who  beheves  the  lies  he  propagates. 
"  Imagination  has  pictured  to  itself  a  domain  in  which 
every  one  who  enters  should  be  compelled  to  speak 
only  what  he  thought,  and  pleased  itself  by  calling  such 
domain  the  Palace  of  Truth.  A  palace  of  veracity,  if 
you  will ;  but  no  temple  of  the  truth.  A  place  where 
each  one  would  be  at  liberty  to  utter  his  own  crude 
unreaHties,  to  bring  forth  his  delusions,  mistakes,  half- 
formed,  hasty  judgements;  where  the  depraved  ear  would 
reckon  discord  harmony,  and  the  depraved  eye  mis- 
take colour ;  the  depraved  moral  taste  take  Herod  or 
Tiberius  for  a  king,  and  shout  beneath  the  Redeemer's 
cross,  '  Himself  He  cannot  save  ! '  A  temple  of  the 
truth  ?     Nay,   only  a  palace   echoing   with   veracious 


332  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

falsehoods,  a  Babel  of  confused  sounds,  in  which 
egotism  would  rival  egotism,  and  truth  would  be  each 
man's  own  lie."  *  In  the  pride  of  our  veracity,  we  miss 
the  verity  of  things ;  we  are  true  only  to  our  blind  self, 
false  to  the  light  of  God.  "  Every  one  that  is  of  the 
truth  heareth  my  voice  : "  so  said  He  who  was  Truth 
incarnate,  making  His  word  a  law  for  all  true  men. 

''In  a// goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth,"  says 
the  apostle.  Let  us  seek  them  all.  We  are  apt  to 
become  speciahsts  in  virtue,  as  in  other  departments  of 
life.  Men  will  endeavour  even  to  compensate  by  extreme 
efforts  in  one  direction  for  deficiencies  in  some  other 
direction,  which  they  scarcely  desire  to  make  good.  So 
they  grow  out  of  shape,  into  oddities  and  moral  mal- 
formations. There  is  a  want  of  balance  and  of  finish 
about  a  multitude  of  Christian  lives,  even  of  those  who 
have  long  and  steadily  pursued  the  way  of  faith.  We 
have  sweetness  without  strength,  and  strength  without 
gentleness,  and  truth  spoken  without  love,  and  words 
of  passionate  zeal  without  accuracy  and  heedfulness. 

All  this  is  infinitely  sad,  and  infinitely  damaging  to 
the  cause  of  our  religion. 

"It  is  the  little  rift  within  the  lute 
That  by-and-by  will  make  the  music  mute, 

And  ever  widening  slowly  silence  all; 
The  little  rift  within  the  lover's  lute, 
Or  little  pitted  speck  in  garnered  fruit, 

That  rotting  inward  slowly  moulders  all." 

Let  us  judge  ourselves,  that  we  be  not  judged  by  the 
Lord.  Let  us  count  no  wrong  a  trifle.  Let  us  never 
imagine  that  our  defects  in  one  kind  will  be  atoned  for 
by  excellencies  in  another.     Our  friends  may  say  this, 

*  F.  W.  Robertson :  Sermons  (First  Series),  xix.,  on  "  The  Kingdom 
of  the  Truth." 


V.7-I4]  THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  LIGHT.  333 

in  charity,  for  us ;  it  is  a  fatal  thing  when  a  man  begins 
to  say  so  to  himself.  ''  May  the  God  of  peace  sanctify 
you  fully.  May  your  whole  spirit,  soul,  and  body  in 
blameless  integrity  be  preserved  to  the  coming  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ"  (i  Thess.  v.  23). 

II.  The  effect  upon  surrounding  darkness  of  the  light 
of  God  in  Christian  lives  is  described  in  verses  11- 14, 
in  words  which  it  remains  for  us  briefly  to  examine. 

Verse  12  distinguishes  ''  the  things  secretly  done  "  by 
the  Gentiles,  **  of  which  it  is  a  shame  even  to  speak," 
from  the  open  and  manifest  forms  of  evil  in  which  they 
invite  their  Christian  neighbours  to  join  (ver.  11).  In- 
stead of  doing  this  and  "having  fellowship  with  the 
unfruitful  works  of  darkness,"  they  must  ''  rather  reprove 
them."  Silent  absence,  or  abstinence  is  not  enough. 
Where  sin  is  open  to  rebuke,  it  should  at  all  hazards 
be  rebuked.  On  the  other  hand,  St  Paul  does  not 
warrant  Christians  in  prying  into  the  hidden  sins  of 
the  world  around  them  and  playing  the  moral  detective. 
Publicity  is  not  a  remedy  for  all  evils,  but  a  great  aggra- 
vation of  some,  and  the  surest  means  of  disseminating 
them.  ''  It  is  a  shame  " — a  disgrace  to  our  common 
nature,  and  a  grievous  peril  to  the  young  and  innocent 
— to  fill  the  public  prints  with  the  nauseous  details  of 
crime  and  to  taint  the  air  with  its  putridities. 

"But  all  things,"  the  apostle  says — whether  it  be 
those  open  works  of  darkness,  profitless  of  good,  which 
expose  themselves  to  direct  conviction,  or  the  depths  of 
Satan  that  hide  their  infamy  from  the  light  of  day— 
"all  things  being  reproved  by  the  light,  are  made 
manifest"  (ver.  13).  The  fruit  of  the  light  convicts 
the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness.  The  daily  fife  of  a 
Christian  man  amongst  men  of  the  world  is  a  perpetual 
reproof,  that  tells  against  secret  sins  of  which  no  word 


334  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

is  spoken,  of  which  the  reprover  never  guesses,  as  well 
as  against  open  and  unblushing  vices. 

"  This  is  the  condemnation/'  said  Jesus,  "  that  light  is 
come  into  the  world."  And  this  condemnation  every 
one  who  walks  in  Christ's  steps,  and  breathes  His 
Spirit  amid  the  corruptions  of  the  world,  is  carrying  on, 
more  frequently  in  silence  than  by  spoken  argument. 
Our  unconscious  and  spontaneous  influence  is  the 
most  real  and  effective  part  of  it.  Life  is  the  light 
of  men — words  only  as  the  index  of  the  hfe  from  which 
they  spring.  Just  so  far  as  our  lives  touch  the  con- 
science of  others  and  reveal  the  difference  between 
darkness  and  light,  so  far  do  we  hold  forth  the  word 
of  life  and  carry  on  the  Holy  Spirit's  work  in  convincing 
the  world  of  sin.     ^*  Let  your  light  so  shine." 

This  manifestation  leads  to  a  transformation  :  ^'  For 
everything  that  is  made  manifest  is  light"  (ver.  13). 
''You  are  light  in  the  Lord,"  St  Paul  says  to  his  con- 
verted Gentile  readers, — you  who  were  ''once  dark- 
ness," once  wandering  in  the  lusts  and  pleasures  of  the 
heathen  around  you,  without  hope  and  without  God. 
The  light  of  the  gospel  disclosed,  and  then  dispelled  the 
darkness  of  that  former  time ;  and  so  it  may  be  with 
your  still  heathen  kindred,  through  the  light  you  bring 
to  them.  So  it  will  be  with  the  night  of  sin  that  is 
spread  over  the  world.  The  light  which  shines  upon 
sin-laden  and  sorrowful  hearts,  shines  on  them  to  change 
them  into  its  own  nature.  The  manifested  is  light :  in 
other  words,  if  men  can  be  made  to  see  the  true  nature 
of  their  sin,  they  will  forsake  it.  If  the  light  can  but 
penetrate  their  conscience,  it  will  save  them.  "  Where- 
fore He  saith  : — 

Awake,  O  sleeper  ;  and  arise  from  out  of  the  dead  ! 
And  the  Christ  shall  dawn  upon  thee  ! " 


7-14.]  THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  LIGHT.  335 

The  speaker  of  this  verse  can  be  no  other  than  God, 
or  the  Spirit  of  God  in  Scripture.  The  sentence  is  no 
mere  quotation.  It  re-utters,  in  the  style  of  Mary's 
or  Zechariah's  song,  the  promise  of  the  Old  Covenant 
from  the  lips  of  the  New.  It  gathers  up  the  import  of 
the  prophecies  concerning  the  salvation  of  Christ,  as 
they  sounded  in  the  apostle's  ears  and,  as  he  conveyed 
them  to  the  world.  Isaiah  Ix.  1-3  supplies  the  basis 
of  our  passage,  where  the  prophet  awakens  Zion  from 
the  sleep  of  the  Exile  and  bids  her  shine  once  more  in 
the  glory  of  her  God  and  show  forth  His  light  to  the 
nations  :  "  Arise,"  he  cries,  *'  shine,  for  thy  light  is 
come  ! "  There  are  echoes  in  the  verse,  besides,  of  Isaiah 
H.  17,  xxvi.  19;  perhaps  even  of  Jonah  i.  6:  "What 
meanest  thou,  O  sleeper  ?  arise,  and  call  upon  thy 
God  ! "  We  seem  to  have  here,  as  in  chapter  iv.  4-6, 
a  snatch  of  the  earliest  Christian  hymns.  The  lines 
are  a  free  paraphrase  from  the  Old  Testament,  formed 
by  weaving  together  Messianic  passages — belonging  to 
such  a  hymn  as  might  be  sung  at  baptisms  in  the 
Pauline  Churches.  Certainly  those  Churches  did  not 
wait  until  the  second  century  to  compose  their  hymns 
and  spiritual  songs  (comp.  ver.  19).  Our  Lord's 
sublime  announcement  (John  v.  25),  already  verified, 
that  "  the  hour  had  come  when  the  dead  should  hear 
the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  they  that  heard  should 
live,"  gave  the  key  to  the  prophetic  sayings  which 
promised  through  Israel  the  light  of  Hfe  to  all  nations. 

With  this  song  on  her  hps  the  Church  went  forth, 
clad  in  the  armour  of  light,  strong  in  the  joy  of  salva- 
tion ;  and  darkness  and  the  works  of  darkness  fled 
before  her. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

THE  NEW  WINE   OF  THE  SPIRIT. 

*'  Look  therefore  carefully  how  ye  walk,  not  as  unwise,  but  as  wise; 
redeeming  the  time,  because  the  days  are  evil.  Wherefore  be  ye  not 
foolish,  but  understand  what  the  will  of  the  Lord  is. 

"  And  be  not  drunken  with  wine,  wherein  is  riot,  but  be  filled  with 
the  Spirit ;  speaking  one  to  another  in  psalms  and  hymns  and  spiritual 
songs,  singing  and  making  melody  with  your  heart  to  the  Lord  ;  giving 
thanks  always  for  all  things  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to 
God,  even  the  Father  ;  subjecting  yourselves  one  to  another  in  the  fear 
of  Christ."— Eph.  V.  15-21. 

VERY  solemnly  did  the  moral  homily  to  the  Asian 
Christians  begin  in  chapter  iv.  17  :  ''This  there- 
fore I  say  and  testify  in  the  Lord,  that  you  must  no 
longer  walk  as  the  Gentiles  walk."  So  much  has  now 
been  said  and  testified  in  the  intervening  paragraphs, 
by  way  both  of  dehortation  and  exhortation.  Here  the 
apostle  pauses ;  and  casting  his  eye  over  the  whole 
pathway  of  life  he  has  marked  out  in  this  discourse,  he 
bids  his  readers  :  ''  Look  then  carefully  how  you  walk. 
Show  that  you  are  not  fools,  but  wise  to  observe  your 
steps  and  to  seize  your  opportunities  in  these  evil 
times, — days  so  perilous  that  you  need  your  best 
wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God's  will  to  save  you  from 
fatal  stumbHng." 

So  far  St  Paul's  renewed  exhortation,  in  verses 
15-17,  inculcates  care  and  wary  discretion, — the  skill 

336 


V.  15-21.]       THE  NEW  WINE  OF  THE  SPIRIT.  337 

that  in  the  strategy  of  life  finds  its  vantage  in  unequal 
ground,  that  makes  opposing  winds  help  forward  the 
seafarer.  In  this  sober  wisdom  it  is  likely  the  Asian 
Christians  were  deficient.  In  many  ways,  both  directly 
and  indirectly,  the  need  of  increased  thoughtfulness 
on  the  readers'  part  has  been  indicated.  But  there  is 
another  side  to  the  Christian  nature  :  it  has  its  moods 
of  exhilaration,  as  well  as  of  caution  and  reflection; 
ardent  emotion,  eager  speech  and  exultant  song  are 
things  proper  to  a  high  religious  fife.  For  these  the 
apostle  makes  room  in  verses  18-20,  while  the  three 
foregoing  verses  enjoin  the  circumspection  and  vigilance 
that  become  the  good  soldier  of  Christ  Jesus. 

A  striking  contrast  thus  arises  between  the'  sobriety 
and  the  excitement  that  mark  the  life  of  grace.  We  see 
with  what  strictness  we  must  watch  over  ourselves, 
and  guard  the  character  and  interests  of  the  Church; 
and  with  what  joyousness  and  holy  freedom  we  may 
take  our  part  in  its  communion.  Temperament  and 
constitution  modify  these  injunctions  in  their  personal 
application.  The  Holy  Spirit  does  not  enable  us  all 
to  speak  with  equal  fervour  and  freedom,  nor  to  sing 
with  the  same  tunefulness.  His  power  operates  in  the 
limbs  of  Christ's  body  "according  to  the  measure  of 
each  single  part."  But  the  self-same  Spirit  works  in 
both  these  contrasted  ways,— in  the  sanguine  and  the 
melancholic  disposition,  in  the  demonstrative  and  in 
the  reserved,  in  the  quick  play  of  fancy  and  the  bright- 
ness and  impulsiveness  of  youth  no  less  than  in  the 
sober  gait  and  solid  sense  of  riper  age.  Let  us  see 
how  the  two  opposite  aspects  of  Christian  experience 
are  set  out  in  the  apostle's  words. 

I.  First   of  all,  upon   the   one   side,    heedfulness   is 
enjoined.     The  children  of  light  must  use  the  light  to 

22 


338  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS.' 

see  their  way.  To  "  stumble  at  noonday  "  is  a  proof 
of  folly  or  blindness.  So  misusing  our  light,  we  shall 
quickly  lose  it  and  return  to  the  paths  of  darkness. 

According  to  the  preferable  (Revised)  order  of 
the  words,  the  qualifying  adverb  "  carefully  "  belongs 
to  the  "look,"  not  to  the  ''walk."  The  circumspect 
look  precedes  the  wise  step.  The  spot  is  marked  on 
which  the  foot  is  to  be  planted ;  the  eye  ranges  right 
and  left  and  takes  in .  the  bearings  of  the  new  posi- 
tion, forecasting  its  possibilities.  "  Look  before  you 
leap,"  our  sage  proverb  says.  According  to  the  care- 
fulness of  the  look,  the  success  of  the  leap  is  likely 
to  be. 

There  is  no  word  in  the  epistle  more  apposite  than 
this  to 

"  our  day 
Of  haste,  half- work,  and  disarray." 

We  are  too  restless  to  think,  too  impatient  to  learn. 
Everything  is  sacrificed  to  speed.  The  telegraph  and 
the  daily  newspaper  symbolize  the  age.  The  public 
ear  loves  to  be  caught  quickly  and  with  new  sensations  : 
a  premium  is  set  on  carelessness  and  hurry.  Earnest 
men,  eager  for  the  triumph  of  a  good  cause,  push 
forward  with  unsifted  statements  and  unweighed  de- 
nunciations, that  discredit  Christian  advocacy  and 
wound  the  cause  of  truth  and  charity.  Time,  thus 
wronged  and  driven  beyond  her  pace,  has  her  revenge ; 
she  deals  hardly  with  these  light  judgements  of  the 
hour.  They  are  as  the  chaff  which  the  wind  carrieth 
away.  After  all,  it  is  still  truth  that  lives;  thorough 
work  that  lasts  ;  accuracy  that  hits  the  mark.  And 
the  time-servers  are  *'  unwise,"  both  intellectually  and 
morally.  They  are  most  unwise  who  think  to  succeed 
in  life's  high  calling  without  self-distrust,  and  without 


V.  15-21.]        THE  NEW  WINE  OF  THE  SPIRIT.  339 

scrupulous  care  and  pains  in  all  work  they  do  for  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

In  the  evil  of  his  own  times  St  Paul  sees  a  special 
reason  for  heedfulness :  "  Walk  not  as  unwise,  but  as 
wise,  buying  up  the  opportunity,  because  the  days  are 
evilJ^  In  Colossians  iv.  5  the  parallel  sentence  shows 
that  in  giving  this  caution  he  is  thinking  of  the  relation 
of  Christians  to  the  world  outside  :  '*  Walk  in  wisdom 
toward  those  without,  buying  up  the  opportunity." 
Evil  days  they  were,  when  Paul  lay  in  Nero's  prison  ; 
when  that  wild  beast  was  raging  against  everything 
that  resisted  his  mad  will  or  reproved  his  monstrous 
vices.  With  supreme  power  in  the  hands  of  such  a 
creature  of  Satan,  who  could  tell  what  fires  of  per- 
secution were  kindling  for  the  people  of  Christ,  or 
what  terrible  revelation  of  God's  anger  against  the 
present  evil  world  might  be  impending.  At  Ephesus 
the  spirit  of  heathenism  had  shown  itself  peculiarly 
menacing.  Here,  too,  in  the  rich  and  cultivated  pro- 
vince of  Asia  where  the  currents  of  Eastern  and 
Western  thought  met,  heresy  and  its  corruptions  made 
their  first  decided  appearance  in  the  Churches  of  the 
Gentiles.  Conflicts  are  approaching  which  will  try  to 
the  uttermost  the  strength  of  the  Christian  faith  and 
the  temper  of  its  weapons  (vi.  10-16). 

As  wise  men,  reading  thoughtfully  the  signs  of  the 
times,  the  Asian  Christians  will  ^'  redeem  the  [present] 
season."  They  will  use  to  the  utmost  the  light  given 
them.  They  will  employ  every  means  to  increase  their 
knowledge  of  Christ,  to  confirm  their  faith  and  the 
habits  of  their  spiritual  life.  They  are  like  men  expect- 
ing a  siege,  who  strengthen  their  fortifications  and 
furbish  their  weapons  and  practise  their  drill  and  lay 
up   store  of  supplies,   that    they  may   "stand   in   the 


340  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

evil  day."  Such  wisdom  Ecclesiastes  preaches  to  the 
young  man :  ^'  Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days 
of  thy  youth,  or  ever  the  evil  days  come." 

Within  a  year  after  this  epistle  was  penned,  Rome 
was  burnt  and  the  crime  of  its  burning  washed  out, 
at  Nero's  caprice,  in  Christian  blood.  In  four  years 
more  St  Paul  and  St  Peter  had  died  a  martyr's  death 
at  Rome ;  and  Nero  had  fallen  by  the  assassin's  hand. 
At  once  the  Empire  was  convulsed  with  civil  war; 
and  the  year  68-69  was  known  as  that  of  the  Four 
Emperors.  Amid  the  storms  threatening  the  ruin  of 
the  Roman  State,  the  Jewish  war  against  Rome  was 
carried  on,  ending  in  the  year  70  with  the  capture  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  destruction  of  the  Jewish  temple 
and  nationality.  These  were  the  days  of  tribulation 
of  which  our  Lord  spoke,  "such  as  had  not  been  since 
the  beginning  of  the  world  "  (Matt.  xxiv.  21,  22).  The 
entire  fabric  of  life  was  shaken ;  and  in  the  midst  of 
earthquake  and  tempest,  blood  and  fire,  Israel  met  its 
day  of  judgement  and  the  former  age  passed  away.  In 
the  year  63,  when  the  apostle  wrote,  the  sky  was  every- 
where red  and  lowering  with  signs  of  coming  storm. 
None  knew  where  or  how  the  tempest  might  break,  or 
what  would  be  its  issue. 

When  men  amid  evil  days  and  portents  of  danger 
must  be  told  not  to  be  "  fooHsh  "  nor  "  drunken  with 
wine,"  one  is  disposed  to  tax  them  with  levity.  It  was 
difficult  for  these  Asian  Greeks  to  take  life  seriously, 
and  to  realize  the  gravity  of  their  situation.  St  Paul 
appeals  to  them  by  their  duty,  still  more  than  by  their 
danger  :  ''  Be  not  foolish,  but  understand  what  the  will 
of  the  Lord  is."  As  he  bade  the  Thessalonians  consider 
that  chastity  was  not  matter  of  choice  and  of  their  own 
advantage  only,  it  was  "  God's  will  "  (i  Ep.  iv.  3),  so 


V.  15-21.]       THE  NEW  WINE  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 


341 


the  Ephesians  must  understand  that  Christ  is  no  mere 
adviser,  nor  the  Christian  Hfe  an  optional  system  that 
men  may  adopt  when  and  so  far  as  it  suits  them.  He 
is  our  Lord  ;  and  it  is  our  business  to  understand,  in 
order  that  we  may  execute,  His  designs.  For  this 
Christ's  servants  require  a  watchful  eye  and  an  alert 
intelligence.  They  must  be  no  dullards  nor  simpletons, 
who  would  enter  into  the  Divine  Master's  plans;  no 
triflers,  no  creatures  of  sentiment  and  impulse,  who  are 
to  be  the  agents  of  His  will.  He  can  and  does  employ 
every  sincere  heart  that  gives  itself  in  love  to  Hini. 
But  His  nobler  tasks  are  for  the  wise  taught  by  His 
Spirit,  for  those  who  can  ''understand,"  with  pene- 
trating sympathy  and  breadth  of  comprehension, 
"  what  the  will  of  the  Lord  is."  Hence  the  distinction 
of  St  Paul  himself,  and  of  John  the  beloved  disciple, 
amongst  His  ministers  and  witnesses,— men  great  in 
mind  as  they  were  in  heart,  whose  thoughts  about 
Christ  were  as  grand  as  their  love  to  Him  was  fervent. 
Nowhere  does  the  apostle  say  so  much  of  ''the  will 
of  God  "  in  regard  to  the  dispensation  of  grace  as  he 
does  in  this  epistle.*  For  he  sees  life  and  salvation 
here  in  their  largest  bearings  and  proportions.  He 
prayed  at  the  outset  that  the  Gentile  readers  might 
realize  the  value  that  God  puts  upon  them,  and  the 
mighty  forces  He  has  set  at  work  for  their  salvation 
(i.  18-20);  and  again,  that  they  might  comprehend 
the  vast  dimensions  of  His  plan  for  the  building  of  the 
Church  (iii.  18).  Now  that  he  has  shown  the  relation 
of  this  eternal  purpose  to  the  character  and  every- 
day life  of  the  converted  Gentiles,  "  the  will  of  God  " 
becomes  matter  of  immediate  import;    it  is  revealed 

*  See  ch.  i.  5-1 1,  ii.  21,  iii.  11,  v.  10,  vi.  6  ;  comp.  Col.  i.  9,  27, 
iv.  12  ;  Phil.  ii.  13,— epistles  of  the  same  group. 


342  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

in  its  bearing  upon  conduct,  upon  the  affairs  of 
business  and  society.  It  is  not  the  purpose,  the 
promises,  the  doctrine  of  the  Lord  alone,  but  "  the 
will  of  the  Lord "  that  they  have  to  understand, 
as  it  touches  their  spirit  and  behaviour  day  by  day. 
They  must  reaHze  the  practical  demands  of  their 
religion, — how  it  is  to  make  them  truthful,  gracious, 
pure  and  wise.  They  must  translate  creed  into  Hfe 
and  act.  Such  is  the  wisdom  which  their  apostle 
strives  to  instil  into  the  Asian  Christians.  Their  first 
need  was  spiritual  enlightenment;  their  second  need 
was  moral  intelligence.  Might  they  only  have  sense 
to  understand  and  loyalty  to  obey  the  will  of  Christ. — 
And  oh  may  we  ! 

IL  There  were  converted  thieves  in  the  Ephesian 
Church,  who  still  needed  to  be  warned  against  their 
old  propensities  (iv.  28) ;  there  were  men  who  had 
been  sorcerers  and  fortune-tellers  (Acts  xix.  18,  19). 
It  appears  that  there  were  in  this  circle  converted 
drunkards  also,  men  to  whom  the  apostle  is  obliged 
to  say  :  '*  Be  not  drunk  with  wine,  wherein  is  riot." 

In  view  of  the  following  context  (vv.  19-21),  and 
remembering  how  the  Lord's  table  was  defiled  by  excess 
at  Corinth  (i  Cor.  xi.  17-34),  it  seems  to  us  probable 
that  the  warning  of  verse  1 8  had  special  reference  to  the 
Christian  assemblies.  The  institution  of  the  common 
meal,  the  Agape  or  Lovefeast  accompanying  the  Lord's 
Supper,  suited  the  manners  of  the  early  Christians, 
and  was  long  continued.  The  cities  of  Asia  Minor 
were  full  of  trade-guilds  and  clubs  for  various  social 
and  religious  purposes,  in  which  the  common  supper,  or 
club-feast,  furnished  usually  by  each  member  bringing 
his  contribution  to  the  table,  was  a  familiar  bond  of 
fellowship.     This  afforded  to  the  Church  a  natural  and 


V.  15-21.]        THE  NEW  WINE  OF  THE  SPIRIT.  343 

pleasant  means  of  intercourse ;  but  it  must  be  purified 
from  sensual  indulgence.      Wine  was  its  chief  danger. 

The  eastern  coast  of  the  ^gean  is  an  ancient  home 
of  the  vine.  And  the  Greeks  of  the  Asian  towns,  on 
those  bright  shores  and  under  their  genial  sky,  were  a 
lighthearted,  sociable  race.  They  sought  the  wine-cup 
not  for  animal  indulgence,  but  as  a  zest  to  good-fellow- 
ship and  to  give  a  freer  flow  to  social  joys.  This  was 
the  influence  that  ruled  their  feasts,  that  loosened  their 
tongues  and  inspired  their  gaiety.  Hence  their  wit 
was  prone  to  become  ribaldry  (ver.  4)  ;  and  their 
songs  were  the  opposite  of  the  ''  spiritual  songs  "  that 
gladden  the  feasts  of  the  Church  (ver.  19).  The 
quick  imagination  and  the  social  instincts  of  the 
Ionian  Greeks,  the  aptness  for  speech  and  song  native 
to  the  land  of  Homer  and  Sappho,  were  gifts  not  to 
be  repressed  but  sanctified.  The  lyre  is  to  be  tuned 
to  other  strains ;  and  poetry  must  draw  its  inspira- 
tion from  a  higher  source.  Dionysus  and  his  reeling 
Fauns  give  place  to  the  pure  Spirit  of  Jesus  and  the 
Father.  ''The  Aonian  mount"  must  now  pay  tribute 
to  "  Sion  hill "  ;  and  the  fountain  of  Castalia  yields  its 

honours  to 

' '  Siloa's  brook  that  flowed 
Fast  by  the  oracle  of  God." 

Our  nature  craves  excitement, — some  stimulus  that 
shall  set  the  pulses  dancing  and  thrill  the  jaded  framie, 
and  lift  the  spirit  above  the  taskwork  of  life  and  the 
dreary  and  hard  conditions  which  make  up  the  daily  lot 
of  multitudes.  It  is  this  craving  that  gives  to  strong 
drink  its  cruel  fascination.  Alcohol  is  a  niighty 
magician.  The  tired  labouring  man,  the  household 
drudge  shut  up  in  city  courts  refreshed  by  no  pleasant 
sight  or  cheering  voice,    by  its  aid   can  leave  fretted 


344  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

nerves  and  aching  limbs  and  dull  care  behind,  and 
taste,  if  it  be  only  for  a  feverish  moment,  of  the  joy 
of  bounding  life.  Can  such  cravings  be  hindered  from 
seeking  their  relief?  The  removal  of  temptation  will 
accomplish  little,  unless  higher  tastes  are  formed  and 
springs  of  purer  pleasure  opened  to  the  masses  for 
whom  our  civilization  makes  life  so  drab  and  colourless. 
^'  One  finds  traces  of  the  primitive  greatness  of  our 
nature  even  in  its  most  deplorable  errors.  Just  as 
impurity  proceeds  at  the  bottom  from  an  abuse  of  the 
craving  for  love,  so  drunkenness  betrays  a  certain 
demand  for  ardour  and  enthusiasm,  which  in  itself  is 
natural  and  even  noble.  .  .  .  Man  loves  to  feel  himself 
alive  ;  he  would  fain  live  twice  his  life  at  once ;  and  he 
would  rather  draw  excitement  from  horrible  things  than 
have  no  excitement  at  all "  (Monod). 

For  the  drunkards  of  Ephesus  the  apostle  finds  a  cure 
in  the  joys  of  the   Holy  Ghost.     The  mightiest  and 
most  moving  spring  of  feehng  is  in  the  spirit  of  man 
kindred  to  God.      There   is   a    deep   excitement   and 
refreshment,  a  ^'joy  that  human  thought  transcends,'' 
in  the  love  of  God  shed  abroad  in  the  heart  and  the 
communion   of    true   saints,    which    makes    sensuous 
delights  cheap  and  poor.     Toil  and  care  are  forgotten, 
sickness  and  trouble  seem  as  nothing ;  we  can  glory  in 
tribulation  and  laugh  in  the  face  of  death,  when  the 
strong  wine  of  God's  consolations  is  poured  into  the  soul. 
^*  Be  filled   v;ith   the  Spirit,"   says    the    apostle — or 
more  strictly,   "  filled   in  the  Spirit " ;   since  the  Holy 
Spirit  of  God- is  the  element  of  the  believer's  life,  sur- 
rounding  while   it   penetrates    his    nature  :    it   is   the 
atmosphere  that  he  breathes,   the  ocean  in  which  he 
is  immersed.     As  a  flood  fills  up  the  river-banks,  as 
the  drunkard   is   filled  with  the  wine  that  he  drains 


V.  15-21.]       THE  NEW  WINE  OF  THE  SPIRIT.  345 


without  limit,  so  the  apostle  would  have  his  readers 
yield  themselves  to  the  tide  of  the  Spirit's  coming  and 
steep  their  nature  in  His  influence.  The  Greek  im- 
perative, moreover,  is  present,  and  "  describes  this 
influence  as  ever  going  forth  from  the  Spirit "  (Beet). 
This  is  to  be  a  continual  replenishment.  Paul  has 
prayed  that  we  may  "  be  filled  unto  all  the  fulness  of 
God  "  (iii.  19),  and  has  bidden  us  grow  ''  to  the  measure 
of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ"  (iv.  13)  in 
whom  we  ''  are  made  full  "  (Col.  ii.  9)  :  in  the  replenish- 
ment of  the  Spirit  the  fulness  of  God  in  Christ  is 
sensibly  imparted.  God's  fulness  is  the  hidden  and 
eternal  spring  of  all  that  can  fill  our  nature ;  Christ's 
fulness  is  its  revelation  and  renewed  communication 
to  the  race  ;  the  Holy  Spirit's  fulness  is  its  abiding 
energy  within  the  soul  and  within  the  Church.  Thus 
possessed,  the  Church  is  truly  the  body  of  Christ  (iv.  4), 
and  the  habitation  of  God  (ii.  21,  22). 

The  words  of  verses  19,  20  show  that  St  Paul  is 
thinking  of  that  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Christian 
community,  which  is  the  spring  of  its  affections  and 
activities.  The  Spirit  of  Jesus,  the  Son  of  man,  is 
a  kindly  and  gracious  Spirit,  the  guardian  of  brother- 
hood and  friendship,  the  inspirer  of  pure  social  joys 
and  genial  converse.  The  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost 
that  in  its  warmth  and  freshness  filled  the  hearts  of 
the  first  Christians,  soared  upward  on  the  wings  of 
song.  Their  very  talk  was  music  :  they  "  spoke  to 
each  other  in  psalms  and  hymns  and  spiritual  songs, 
singing  and  making  melody  with  their  heart  to  the 
Lord."     Love  loves  to  sing.     Its  joys 

'•  from  out  our  hearts  arise, 
And  speak  and  sparkle  in  our  eyes, 
And  vibrate  on  our  tongue." 


346  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

All  exalted  sentiment  tends  to  rhythmical  expression. 
There  is  a  mystical  alliance,  which  is  amongst  the 
most  significant  facts  in  our  constitution,  between 
emotion  and  art.  The  rudest  natures,  touched  by 
high  feeling,  will  shape  themselves  to  some  sort  of 
beauty,  to  some  grace  and  refinement  of  expression. 
Each  new  stirring  of  the  pulse  of  man's  common  life 
has  been  marked  by  a  re-birth  of  poetry  and  art.  The 
songs  of  Mary  and  Zechariah  were  the  parents  and 
patterns  of  a  multitude  of  holy  canticles.  In  the 
Psalms  of  Scripture  the  New  Testament  Church  found 
already  an  instrument  of  wide  compass  strung  and 
tuned  for  her  use.  We  can  imagine  the  dehght  with 
which  the  Gentile  Christians  would  take  up  the  Psalter 
and  draw  out  one  and  another  of  its  pearls,  and  would 
in  turn  recite  them  at  their  meetings,  and  adapt  them 
to  their  native  measures  and  modes  of  song.  After 
a  while,  they  began  to  mix  with  the  praise-songs 
of  Israel  newer  strains — ^'  hymns "  to  the  glory  of 
Christ  and  the  Father,  such  as  that  with  which  this 
epistle  opens,  needing  but  Httle  change  in  form  to  make 
it  a  true  poem,  and  such  as  those  which  break  in  upon 
the  dread  visions  of  the  Apocalypse;  and  added  to 
these,  ''  spiritual  songs  "  of  a  more  personal  and  inci- 
dental character,  like  Simeon's  Nunc  dimittis  or  Paul's 
swan-song  in  his  last  letter  to  Timothy.  In  verse  14 
above  we  detected,  as  we  thought,  an  early  Church 
paraphrase  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  later  epistles 
addressed  to  Ephesus,  there  are  fragments  of  just  such 
artless  chants  as  the  Asian  Christians,  exhorted  and 
taught  by  their  apostle,  were  wont  to  sing  in  their 
assemblies:  see  i  Timothy  iii.  16,  and  2  Timothy  ii. 
11-13. 

Upon  this  congenial  soil,  we  trace  the  beginnings  of 


V.  15-21.]       THE  NEW  WINE  OF  THE  SPIRIT.  347 


Christian  psalmody.  The  parallel  text  of  Colossians 
(iii.  16)  discloses  in  the  songs  of  the  Pauline  Churches 
a  didactic  as  well  as  a  lyric  character.  The  apostle  bids 
his  readers  ''teach  and  admonish  one  another  by  psalms, 
hymns,  spiritual  songs."  The  form  of  the  sentence 
of  chapter  iv.  4-6  in  this  letter,  and  of  i  Timothy  iii.  16, 
suggests  that  these  passages  were  destined  for  use  as 
a  chanted  rehearsal  of  Christian  belief.  Thus  ''the 
word  of  Christ  dwelling  richly  "  in  the  heart,  poured 
itself  freely  from  the  lips,  and  added  to  its  grave 
discourse  the  charms  of  gladdening  and  spirit-stirring 
song. 

As  in  their  heathen  days  they  were  used  to  ''  speak 
to  each  other,"  in  festive  or  solemn  hours,  with  hymns 
to  Artemis  of  the  Ephesians,  or  Dionysus  giver  of  the 
vine,   or  to   Persephone    sad    queen    of  the    dead— in 
songs  merry  and   gay,    too   often   loose  and  wanton; 
in  songs  of  the  dark  underworld  and  the  grim  Furies 
and  inexorable  Fate,  that  told  how  life  fleets  fast  and 
we  must  pluck  its  pleasures  while  we  may;— so  now 
the  Christians  of  Ephesus  and  Coloss^e,  of  Pergamum 
and  of  Smyrna  would   sing   of  the   universal   Father 
whose  presence  fills  earth  and  sky,  of  the  Son  of  His 
love.   His  image  amongst  men,   who   died  in   sacrifice 
for  their  sins  and  asked  grace  for  His  murderers,  of 
the  joys  of  forgiveness  and  the  cleansed  heart,  of  life 
eternal  and  the  treasure  laid  up   for  the  just  in   the 
heavenly  places,  of  Christ's  return   in  glory  and   the 
judgement  of  the^  nations    and    the  world    quickly   to 
dissolve   and    perish,    of   a    brotherhood    dearer    than 
earthly  kindred,  of  the  saints  who  sleep  in  Jesus  and 
in  peace  await  His  coming,  of  the  Good  Shepherd  who 
feeds  His  sheep  and  leads  them  to  fountains  of  Hving 
water  calling  each  by  his  name,  of  creation  redeemed 


348  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

and  glorified  by  His  love,  of  pain  and  sorrow  sancti- 
fied and  the  trials  that  make  perfect  in  Christ's  dis- 
cipline, of  the  joy  that  fills  the  heart  in  suffering  for 
Him,  and  the  vision  of  His  face  awaiting  us  beyond 
the  grave.  So  reciting  and  chanting — now  in  single 
voice,  now  in  full  chorus — singing  the  Psalms  of  David 
to  their  Greek  music,  or  hymns  composed  by  their 
leaders,  or  sometimes  improvised  in  the  rapture  of  the 
moment,  the  Churches  of  Ephesus  and  of  the  Asian 
cities  lauded  and  glorified  ''  the  name  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ"  and  the  counsels  of  redeeming  love. 
So  their  worship  and  fellowship  were  filled  with  glad- 
ness. Thus  in  their  great  Church  meetings,  and  in 
smaller  companies,  many  a  joyous  hour  passed  ;  and 
all  hearts  were  cheered  and  strengthened  in  the  Lord. 

"  Singing  and  playingj^  says  the  apostle.  For  music 
aided  song;  voice  and  instrument  blended  in  His 
praise  whose  glory  claims  the  tribute  of  all  creatures. 
But  it  was  ''with  the  heart,"  even  more  than  with 
voice  or  tuneful  strings,  that  melody  was  made.  For 
this  inward  music  the  Lord  listens.  Where  other  skill 
is  wanting  and  neither  voice  nor  hand  can  take  its 
part  in  the  concert  of  praise.  He  hears  the  silent 
gratitude,  the  humble  joy  that  wells  upward  when  the 
lips  are  still  or  the  full  heart  cannot  find  expression. 

But  the  Spirit  who  dwelt  in  the  praises  of  the  new 
Israel,  was  not  confined  to  its  public  assemblings.  The 
people  of  Christ  should  be  ^^  always  giving  thanks^  for 
all  fhings,  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  It 
is  one  of  St  Paul's  commonest  injunctions.  ''  In  every- 
thing give  thanks,"  he  wrote  to  the  Thessalonians  in 
his  earliest  extant  letter  (i  Ep.  v.  i8).  "For  all 
things,"  he  says  to  the  Ephesians, — ''though  fallen  on 
evil  days."     Do  we  not  "  know  that  to  them  that  love 


V.  15-21.]        THE  NEW  WINE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  349 

God  all  things  work  together  for  good  " — evil  days  as 
well  as  good  days  ?  Nothing  comes  altogether  amiss 
to  the  child  of  God.  In  the  heaviest  loss,  the  severest 
pain,  the  sharpest  sting  of  injury — "in  everything"  the 
ingenuity  of  love  and  the  sweetness  of  patience  will 
find  some  token  of  mercy.  If  the  evil  is  to  our  eyes 
all  evil  and  we  can  see  in  it  no  reason  for  thanksgiving, 
then  faith  will  give  thanks  for  that  which  we  ''  know  not 
now,  but  shall  know  hereafter." 

Always,  the  apostle  says,— /or  all  things  !  No  room 
for  a  moment's  discontent.  In  this  perfecting  of  praise 
he  had  himself  undergone  a  long  schooling  in  his  four 
years'  imprisonment.  Now,  he  tells  us,  he  ''  has  learnt 
the  secret  of  contentment,  in  whatsoever  state  "  (Phil, 
iv.  12).  Let  us  try  to  learn  it  from  him.  These  words, 
which  we  treat,  almost  unconsciously,  as  the  exaggera- 
tion of  homiletical  appeal,  state  no  more  than  the  sober 
possibiHty,  the  experience  attained  by  many  a  Christian 
in  circumstances  of  the  greatest  suffering  and  depriva- 
tion. The  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  suffices 
for  the  Hfe  and  joy  of  man's  spirit. 

The  twenty-first  verse,  which  seems  to  belong  to  a 
different  line  of  thought,  in  reality  completes  the  fore- 
going paragraph.  In  the  Corinthian  Church,  as  we 
remember,  with  its  affluence  of  spiritual  gifts,  there 
were  so  many  ready  to  prophesy,  so  many  to  sing  and 
recite,  that  confusion  arose  and  the  Church  meetings 
fell  into  disedifying  uproar  (i  Cor.  xiv.  26-34).  The 
apostle  would  not  have  such  scenes  occur  again.  Hence 
when  he  urges  the  Asian  Christians  to  seek  the  full 
inspiration  of  the  Spirit  and  to  give  free  utterance  in 
song  to  the  impulses  of  their  new  life,  he  adds  this  word 
of  caution  :  "  being  subject  to  one  another  in  fear  of 
Christ."     He  reminds  them  that  "  God  is  not  the  author 


350  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  confusion."  His  Spirit  is  a  spirit  of  seemliness  and 
reverence.  '^  In  fear  of  Christ,"  the  unseen  witness  and 
president  of  its  assembUes,  the  Church  will  comport 
herself  with  the  decorum  that  befits  His  bride.  The 
spirits  of  the  prophets  will  be  subject  to  the  prophets. 
The  voices  of  the  singers  and  the  hands  of  them  that 
play  upon  the  strings  of  the  harp  or  the  keys  of 
the  organ,  will  keep  tune  with  the  worship  of  Christ's 
congregation.  Each  must  consider  that  it  is  his  part 
to  serve  and  not  rule  in  the  service  of  God's  house. 

In  our  common  work  and  worship,  in  all  the  offices 
of  life  this  is  the  Christian  law.  No  man  within 
Christ's  Church,  however  commanding  his  powers,  may 
set  himself  above  the  duty  of  submitting  his  judgement 
and  will  to  that  of  his  fellows.  In  mutual  subjection 
lies  our  freedom,  with  our  strength  and  peace. 


ON    FAMILY    LIFE. 

Chapter  v,  22 — vi.  9. 


351 


GeXw   5e  vfjcds  eidhac  on  iraPTos  dpdpbs   i]   KecpaXr)  6  Xpia-ros    i(rnv, 
Ke<pa\T}  be  yvvaiKos  6  dv^p,  KecpaXi]  5^  rod  XpiCTOv  6  0e6s. — I  COR.  xi.  3. 

"And  pure  Religion  breathing  household  laws." 

W.  Wordsworth. 


352 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE. 

"  Wives,  be  in  subjection  to  your  own  husbands,  as  unto  the  Lord. 
For  the  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife,  as  the  Christ  also  is  the  head  of 
the  Church,  being  Himself  the  saviour  of  the  body.  But  as  the  Church 
is  subject  to  the  Christ,  so  let  the  wives  also  be  to  their  husbands  in 
everything. 

"  Husbands,  love  your  wives,  even  as  the  Christ  also  loved  the  Church, 
and  gave  Himself  up  for  her;  that  He  might  sanctify  her,  having 
cleansed  her  by  the  washing  of  water  with  the  word,  that  He  might 
present  the  Church  to  Himself  a  glorious  Chtirch,  not  having  spot  or 
wrinkle  or  any  such  thing ;  but  that  she  should  be  holy  and  without 
blemish. 

"  Even  so  ought  husbands  also  to  love  their  wives  as  their  own  bodies. 
He  that  loveth  his  wife  loveth  himself :  for  no  man  ever  hated  his  own 
flesh  ;  but  nourisheth  and  cherisheth  it,  even  as  the  Christ  also  the 
Church  ;  because  we  are  members  of  His  body.  '  For  this  cause  shall 
a  man  leave  his  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife ;  and 
the  twain  shall  become  one  flesh.'  This  mystery  is  great :  but  I  speak 
in  regard  of  Christ  and  of  the  Church.  Nevertheless  do  ye  also  severally 
love  each  one  his  own  wife  even  as  himself;  and  let  the  wife  see  that  she 
fear  her  husband." — Eph.  v.  22-33. 

IN  mutual  subjection  the  Christian  spirit  has  its 
sharpest  trials  and  attains  its  finest  temper.  ^'  Be 
subject  one  to  another,"  was  the  last  word  of  the 
apostle's  instructions  respecting  the  ''walk"  of  the 
Asian  Churches.  By  its  order  and  subjection  the  gifts 
of  all  the  members  of  Christ's  body  are  made  available 
for  the  upbuilding  of  God's  temple.  The  inward  fellow- 
ship of  the  Spirit  becomes  a  constructive  and  organizing 

353  2^ 


354  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

force,  reconstituting  human  life  and  framing  the  world 
into  the  kingdom  of  Christ  and  God.  ^^  In  fear  of 
Christ "  the  loyal  Christian  man  submits  himself  to  the 
community ;  not  from  the  dread  of  human  displeasure, 
but  knowing  that  he  must  give  account  to  the  Head  of 
the  Church  and  the  Judge  of  the  last  day,  if  his  self-will 
should  weaken  the  Church's  strength  and  interrupt  her 
holy  work.  "  For  the  Lord's  sake  "  His  freemen  submit 
to  every  ordinance  of  men.  This  is  such  a  fear  as 
the  servant  has  of  a  good  master  (vi.  5),  or  the  true 
wife  for  a  loving  husband  (ver.  33), — not  that  which 
"  perfect  love  casts  out,"  but  which  it  deepens  and 
sanctifies. 

Of  this  subjection  to  Christ  the  relationship  of 
marriage  furnishes  an  example  and  a  mirror.  St  Paul 
passes  on  to  the  new  topic  without  any  grammatical 
pause,  verse  22  being  simply  an  extension  of  the 
participial  clause  that  forms  verse  21  :  "Being  in  sub- 
jection to  one  another  in  fear  of  Christ — ye  wives  to 
your  own  husbands,  as  to  the  Lord."  The  relation 
of  the  two  verses  is  not  that  of  the  particular  to 
the  general,  so  much  as  that  of  image  and  object,  of 
type  and  antitype.  Submission  to  Christ  in  the  Church 
suggests  by  analogy  that  of  the  wife  to  her  husband  in 
the  house.  Both  have  their  origin  in  Christ,  in  whom 
all  things  were  created,  the  Lord  of  ife  in  its  natural 
as  well  as  in  its  spiritual  and  regenerate  sphere 
(Col.  i.  15-17).  The  bond  that  links  husband  and  wife, 
lying  at  the  basis  of  collective  human  existence,  has  in 
turn  its  ground  in  the  relation  of  Christ  to  humanity. 

The  race  springs  not  from  a  unit,  but  from  a  united 
pair.  The  history  of  mankind  began  in  wedlock.  The 
family  is  the  first  institution  of  society,  and  the  mother 


V.  22-33-]  CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE.  355 

of  all  the  rest.  It  is  the  life-basis,  the  primitive  cell 
of  the  aggregate  of  cities  and  bodies  politic.  In  the 
health  and  purity  of  household  Hfe  lies  the  moral 
wealth,  the  vigour  and  durability  of  all  civil  institutions. 
The  mighty  upgrowth  of  nations  and  the  great  achieve- 
ments of  history  germinated  in  the  nursery  of  home 
and  at  the  mother's  breast.  Christian  marriage  is  not 
an  expedient — the  last  of  many  that  have  been  tried — 
for  the  satisfaction  of  desire  and  the  continuance  of 
the  human  species.  The  Institutor  of  human  hfe  laid 
down  its  principle  in  the  first  frame  of  things.  Its 
establishment  was  a  great  prophetic  mystery  (ver.  32). 
Its  law  stands  registered  in  the  eternal  statutes.  And 
the  Almighty  Father  watches  over  its  observance  with 
an  awful  jealousy.  Is  it  not  written:  ^'Fornicators 
and  adulterers  God  will  judge  "  ;  and  again,  ''  The  Lord 
is  an  avenger  concerning  all  these  things  "  ? 

St  Paul  rightly  gives  to  this  subject  a  conspicuous 
place  in  this  epistle  of  Christ  and  the  Church.  The 
corner-stone  of  the  new  social  order  which  the  gospel 
was  to  establish  in  the  world  lies  here.  The  entire 
influence  of  the  Church  upon  society  depends  upon 
right  views  on  the  relationship  of  man  and  woman  and 
on  the  ethics  of  marriage. 

In  wedlock  there  are  blended  most  completely  the 
two  principles  of  association  amongst  moral  beings, — 
viz.,  authority  and  love,  submission  and  self-surrender. 

I.  On  the  one  side,  submission  to  authority. 

"Wives,  be  in  subjection,  as  to  the  Lord," — as  is  fit- 
ting in  the  Lord  (Col.  iii.  18).  Again,  in  i  Timothy  ii. 
II,  12,  the  apostle  writes:  *'I  suffer  not  a  woman  to 
teach,  nor  to  have  dominion,"  or  (as  the  word  may 
rather  signify)  ''to  act  independently  of  the  man." 
Were    these    directions    temporary    and    occasional  ? 


1 


356  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Were  they  due,  as  one  hears  it  suggested,  to  the 
uneducated  and  undeveloped  condition  of  women  in 
the  apostle's  time  ?  Or  do  they  not  affirm  a  law  that 
is  deeply  seated  in  nature  and  in  the  feminine  constitu- 
tion ?  The  words  of  i  Corinthians  xi.  2-15  show  that, 
in  the  apostle's  view  of  life,  this  subordination  is  funda- 
mental. ''  The  head  of  woman  is  the  man,"  as  ''  the 
head  of  every  man  is  the  Christ "  and  ^'  the  head  of 
Christ  is  God."  "The  woman,"  he  says,  ^'is  of  the 
man,"  and  "  was  created  because  of  the  man."  Whether 
these  sentences  square  wath  our  modern  conceptions  or 
not,  there  they  stand,  and  their  import  is  unmistakable.* 
They  teach  that  in  the  Divine  order  of  things  it  is  the 
man's  part  to  lead  and  rule,  and  the  woman's  part  to 
be  ruled.  But  the  Christian  woman  will  not  feel  that 
there  is  any  loss  or  hardship  in  this.  For  in  the 
Christian  order,  ambition  is  sin.  To  obey  is  better 
than  to  rule.  She  remembers  who  has  said  :  ''I  am 
amongst  you  as  he  that  serveth."  The  children  of  the 
world  strive  for  place  and  power ;  but  "  it  shall  not  be 
so  amongst  you." 

Such  subordination  implies  no  inferiority,  rather  the 
opposite.  A  free  and  sympathetic  obedience — which  is 
the  true  submission — can  only  subsist  between  equals. 
The  apostle  writes :  "  Children,  obey ;  .  .  .  Servants, 
obey "  (vi.  i,  5) ;  but  "  Wives,  submit  yourselves  to 
your  own  husbands,  as  to  the  Lord."  The  same  word 
denotes  submission  within  the  Church,  and  within  the 
house.  It  is  here  that  Christianity,  in  contrast  with 
Paganism,  and  notably  with  Mohammedanism,  raises 
the  weaker  sex    to  honour.     In    soul    and    destiny   it 

*  See  Dr.  Maclaren's  admirable  words  on  this  subject  in  Colossians 
and  Philemon  (Expositor's  Bible),  pp.  336-40;  and  Dr.  Dale's  Lectures 
on  Ephesians,  Lect.  xix.,  "  Wives  and  Husbands." 


V.  22-33-]  CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE.  357 


declares  the  woman  to  be  man,  endowed  with  all  rights 
and  powers  inherent  in  humanity.  ''  In  Christ  Jesus 
there  is  no  male  and  female,"  any  more  than  there  is 
''Jew  and  Greek"  or  ''bond  and  free."  The  same 
sentence  which  broke  down  the  barriers  of  Jewish 
caste,  and  in  course  of  time  abolished  slavery,  con- 
demned the  odious  assumptions  of  masculine  pride. 
It  is  one  of  the  glories  of  our  faith  that  it  has  enfran- 
chised our  sisters,  and  raises  them  in  spiritual  calling 
to  the  full  level  of  their  brothers  and  husbands.  Both 
sexes  are  children  of  God  by  the  same  birthright ;  both 
receive  the  same  Holy  Spirit,  according  to  the  prediction 
quoted  by  St  Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost :  "  Your 
sons  and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy.  .  .  .  Yea,  on 
my  servants  and  on  my  handmaidens  in  those  days 
will  I  pour  out  of  my  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  "  (Acts  ii. 
17,  18).  This  one  point  of  headship,  of  public  autho- 
rity and  guidance,  is  reserved.  It  is  the  point  on  which 
Christ  forbids  emulation  amongst  His  people. 

Christian  courtesy  treats  the  woman  as  "  the  glory 
of  the  man "  ;  it  surrounds  her  from  girlhood  to  old 
age  with  protection  and  deference.  This  homage,  duly 
rendered,  is  a  full  equivalent  for  the  honour  of  visible 
command.  When,  as  it  happens  not  seldom  in  the 
partnership  of  life,  the  superior  wisdom  dwells  with 
the  weaker  vessel,  the  golden  gift  of  persuasion  is  not 
wanting,  by  which  the  official  ruler  is  guided,  to  his  own 
advantage,  and  his  adviser  accompHshes  more  than  she 
could  do  by  any  overt  leadership.  The  chivalry  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  from  which  the  refinement  of  European 
society  takes  its  rise,  was  a  product  of  Christianity 
grafted  on  the  Teutonic  nature.  Notwithstanding  the 
folly  and  excess  that  was  mixed  with  it,  there  was  a 
beautiful   reverence   in    the  old    knightly  service   and 


358  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS, 


championship  of  women.  It  humanized  the  ferocity 
of  barbarous  times.  It  tamed  the  brute  strength  of 
warlike  races  and  taught  them  honour  and  gentleness. 
Its  prevalence  marked  a  permanent  advance  in  civiHza- 
tion. 

Shall  we  say  that  this  law  of  St  Paul  is  that  laid 
down  specifically  for  Christian  women  ?  is  it  not  rather 
a  law  of  nature — the  intrinsic  propriety  of  sex,  whose 
dictates  are  reinforced  by  the  Christian  revelation  ? 
The  apostle  takes  us  back  to  the  creation  of  mankind 
for  the  basis  of  his  principles  in  dealing  with  this  sub- 
ject (ver.  31).  The  new  commandments  are  the  old 
which  were  in  the  world  from  the  beginning,  though 
concealed  and  overgrown  with  corruption.  Notwith- 
standing the  debasement  of  marriage  under  the  non- 
Christian  systems,  the  instincts  of  natural  religion 
taught  the  wife  her  place  in  the  house  and  gave  rise 
to  many  a  graceful  and  a{5propriate  custom  expressive 
of  the  honour  due  from  one  sex  to  the  other.  So  the 
apostle  regarded  the  man's  bared  and  cropped  head  and 
the  woman's  flowing  tresses  as  symbols  of  their  relative 
place  in  the  Divine  order  (i  Cor.  xi.  13-15).  These  and 
such  distinctions — between  the  dignities  of  strength 
and  of  beauty — no  artificial  sentiment  and  no  capricious 
revolt  can  set  aside,  while  the  world  stands.  St  Paul 
appeals  to  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  to  that  which 
^'nature  itself  teaches,"  in  censuring  the  forwardness 
of  some  Corinthian  women  who  appeared  to  think  that 
the  Uberty  of  the  gospel  released  them  from  the  limita- 
tions of  their  nature. 

Some  earnest  promoters  of  women's  rights  have 
fallen  into  the  error  that  Christianity,  to  which  they 
owe  all  that  is  best  in  their  present  status,  is  the 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  their  further  progress.     It  is  an 


V.  22-33]  CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE.  359 


obstacle  to  claims  that  are  against  nature  and  against 
the  law  of  God,— claims  only  tolerable  so  long  as  they 
are  exceptional.  But  the  barriers  imposed  by  Chris- 
tianity, against  which  these  people  fret,  are  their  main 
protection.  ''  The  moment  Christianity  disappears,  the 
law  of  strength  revives ;  and  under  that  law  women 
can  have  no  hope  except  that  their  slavery  may  be 
mild  and  pleasant."  To  escape  from  the  ''bondage 
of  Christian  law  "  means  to  go  back  to  the  bondage  01 
paganism. 

*'As  unto  the  Lord"  gives  the  pattern  and  the 
principle  of  the  Christian  wife's  submission.  Not 
that,  as  Meyer  seems  to  put  it,  the  husband  in  virtue 
of  marriage  "  represents  Christ  to  the  wife."  Her  rela- 
tion to  the  Lord  is  as  full,  direct,  and  personal  as  his. 
Indeed,  the  clause  inserted  at  the  end  of  verse  23  seems 
expressly  designed  to  guard  against  this  exaggeration. 
The  qualification  that  Christ  is  "  Himself  Saviour  of  the 
body,"  thrown  in  between  the  two  sentences  comparing 
the  marital  headship  to  that  which  Christ  holds  towards 
the  Church,  has  the  effect  of  limiting  the  former.*  The 
subjection  of  the  Christian  wife  to  her  husband  reserves 
for  Christ  the  first  place  in  the  heart  and  the  undimi- 
nished rights  of  Saviourship.  St  Paul  indicates  a  real, 
and  not  unfrequent  danger.  The  husband  may  eclipse 
Christ  in  the  wife's  soul,  and  be  counted  as  her  all  in 
all.  Her  absorption  in  him  may  be  too  complete. 
Hence  the  brief  guarding  clause  :  ''  He  Himself  [and 
no  other]  Saviour  of  the  body  [to  which  all  believers 
alike  belong]."     As  the  Saviour  of  the  Church,  Christ 


*  In  verse  24  St  Paul  resumes  with  aWd,  the  but  of  opposition  and 
not  mere  contrast,  indicating  a  case  where  the  claims  of  husband  and 
Saviour  may,  conceivably,  be  in  competition. 


360  rHE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

holds  an  unrivalled  and  unqualified  lordship  over  every 
member  of  the  same. 

"  Nevertheless,  as  the  Church  is  subject  to  the 
Christ,  so  also  wives  [should  be]  to  their  husbands  in 
everything"  (ver.  24).  Again,  in  verse  33:  "Let  the 
wife  see  that  she  fear  her  husband  " — with  the  reverent 
and  confiding  fear  which  love  makes  sweet.  As  the 
Christian  wife  obeys  the  Lord  Christ  in  the  spiritual 
sphere,  in  the  sphere  of  marriage  she  is  subject  to  her 
husband.  The  ties  that  bind  her  to  Christ,  bind  her 
more  closely  to  the  duties  of  home.  These  duties 
illustrate  for  her  the  submissive  love  that  Christ's 
people,  and  herself  as  one  of  them,  owe  to  their  Divine 
Head.  Her  service  in  the  Church,  in  turn,  will  send 
her  home  with  a  quickened  sense  of  the  sacredness 
of  her  domestic  calling.  It  will  lighten  the  yoke  of 
obedience ;  it  will  check  the  discontent  that  masculine 
exactions  provoke ;  and  will  teach  her  to  win  by 
patience  and  gentleness  the  power  within  the  house 
that  is  her  queenly  crown. 

II.  The  apostle  alludes  to  submission  as  the  wife's 
duty ;  for  she  might,  possibly,  be  tempted  to  think  this 
superseded  by  the  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  Love 
he  need  not  enjoin  upon  her ;  but  he  writes :  "  Hus- 
bands, love  your  wives,  even  as  the  Christ  also  loved 
the  Church  and  gave  up  Himself  for  her  "  (comp.  Col. 
iii.  18,  19). 

The  danger  of  selfishness  lies  on  the  masculine  side. 
The  man's  nature  is  more  exacting;  and  the  self- 
forgetfulness  and  solicitous  affection  of  the  woman  may 
blind  him  to  his  own  want  of  the  truest  love.  Full 
of  business  and  with  a  hundred  cares  and  attractions 
lying  outside  the  domestic  circle,  he  too  readily  forms 
habits  of  self-absorption  and  learns  to  make  his  wife 


V.  22-33.]  CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE.  361 

and  home  a  convenience,  from  which  he  takes  as  his 
right  the  comfort  they  have  to  give,  imparting  httle  of 
devotion  and  confidence  in  return.  This  lack  of  love 
denies  the  higher  rights  of  marriage;  it  makes  the 
wife's  submission  a  joyless  constraint.  Along  with  this 
selfishness  and  the  uneasy  conscience  attending  it,  there 
supervenes  sometimes  an  irritability  of  temper  that 
chafes  over  domestic  troubles  and  makes  a  grievance 
of  the  most  trifling  mishap  or  inadvertence,  ignoring 
the  wife's  patient  affection  and  anxiety  to  please.  Too 
often  in  this  way  husbands  grow  insensibly  into  family 
tyrants,  forgetting  the  days  of  youth  and  the  kindness 
of  their  espousals.  "There  are  many,"  says  Bengel 
(on  this  point  unusually  caustic),  "who  out  of  doors 
are  civil  and  kind  to  all ;  when  at  home,  toward  their 
wives  and  children,  whom  they  have  no  need  to  fear, 
they  freely  practise  secret  bitterness." 

"  Love  your  wives,  even  as  the  Christ  loved  the  Church." 
What  a  glory  this  confers  upon  the  husband's  part  in 
marriage  !  His  devotion  pictures,  as  no  other  love  can, 
the  devotion  of  Christ  to  His  redeemed  people.  His  love 
must  therefore  be  a  spiritual  passion,  the  love  of  soul 
to  soul,  that  partakes  of  God  and  of  eternity.  Of  the 
three  Greek  words  for  love, — eros,  familiar  in  Greek 
poetry  and  mythology,  denoting  the  flame  of  sexual 
passion,  is  not  named  in  the  New  Testament;  philia, 
the  love  of  friendship,  is  tolerably  frequent,  in  its  verb 
at  least ;  but  agape  absorbs  the  former  and  transcends 
both.  This  exquisite  word  denotes  love  in  its  spiritual 
purity  and  depth,  the  love  of  God  and  of  Christ,  and  of 
souls  to  each  other  in  God.  This  is  the  specific  Chris- 
tian affection.  It  is  the  attribute  of  God  who  "  loved 
the  world  and  gave  His  Son  the  Only-begotten,"  of 
"  the   Christ "  who    "  loved   the   Church   and   gave   up 


362  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Himself  for  her."  Self-devotion,  not  self-satisfaction, 
is  its  note.  Its  strength  and  authority  it  uses  as 
material  for  sacrifice  and  instruments  of  service,  not 
as  prerogatives  of  pride  or  titles  to  enjoyment.  Let 
this  mind  be  in  you,  O  husband,  toward  your  wife, 
which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  was  meek  and 
lowly  in  heart,  counting  it  His  honour  to  serve  and  His 
reward  to  save  and  bless. 

From  verse  26  we  gather  that  Christ  is  the  husband's 
model,  not  only  in  the  rule  of  self-devotion,  but  in  the 
end  toward  which  that  devotion  is  directed :  "  that  He 
might  sanctify  the  Church, — that  He  might  present  her 
to  Himself  a  glorious  Church  without  spot  or  wrinkle, 
— that  she  might  be  holy  and  without  blemish^  The 
perfection  of  the  wife's  character  will  be  to  the  religious 
husband  one  of  the  dearest  objects  in  life.  He  will 
desire  for  her  that  which  is  highest  and  best,  as  for 
himself.  He  is  put  in  charge  of  a  soul  more  precious 
to  him  than  any  other,  over  which  he  has  an  influence 
incomparably  great.  This  care,  he  cannot  delegate  to 
any  priest  or  father-confessor.  The  peril  of  such 
delegation  and  the  grievous  mischiefs  that  arise  when 
there  is  no  spiritual  confidence  between  husband  and 
wife,  when  through  unbelief  or  superstition  the  head  of 
the  house  hands  over  his  priesthood  to  another  man,  are 
painfully  shown  by  the  experience  of  Roman  Catholic 
countries.  The  irreligion  of  laymen,  the  carelessness  and 
unworthiness  of  fathers  and  husbands  are  responsible  for 
the  baneful  influences  of  the  confessional.  The  apostle 
bade  the  Corinthian  wives,  who  were  eager  for  religious 
knowledge,  to  "ask  their  husbands  at  home"  (i  Cor. 
xiv.  35).  Christian  husbands  should  take  more  account 
of  their  office  than  they  do ;  they  should  not  be  strangers 
to  the  spiritual  trials  and  experiences  of  the  heart  so 


V.  22-33.]  CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE.  363 

near  to  them.  It  might  lead  them  to  walk  more  worthily 
and  to  seek  higher  religious  attainments,  if  they  con- 
sidered that  the  shepherding  of  at  least  one  soul  devolves 
upon  themselves,  that  they  are  unworthy  of  the  name 
of  husband  without  such  care  for  the  welfare  of  the 
soul  linked  to  their  own  as  Christ  bears  toward  His 
bride  the  Church.  Those  who  have  no  father  or 
husband  to  look  to,  or  who  look  in  vain  to  this  quarter 
for  spiritual  help,  St  Paul  refers,  beside  the  light  and 
comfort  of  Scripture  and  the  public  ministry  and 
fellowship  of  the  Church,  to  the  ''  aged  women  "  who 
are  the  natural  guides  and  exemplars  of  the  younger 
in  their  own  sex  (Titus  ii.   3-5). 

The  selfishness  of  the  stronger  sex,  supported  by 
the  force  of  habit  and  social  usage,  was  hard  to  subdue 
in  the  Greek  Christian  Churches.  Through  some 
eight  verses  St  Paul  labours  this  one  point.  In  verse 
28  he  adduces  another  reason,  added  to  the  example 
of  Christ,  for  the  love  enjoined.  "  So  ought  men  indeed 
to  love  their  wives  as  their  own  bodies.  He  that 
loveth  his  wife  loveth  himself."  The  ^'  So "  gathers 
its  force  from  the  previous  example.  In  loving  us 
Christ  does  not  love  something  foreign  and,  as  it  were, 
outside  of  Himself.  ''  We  are  members  of  His  body  " 
(ver.  30).  It  is  the  love  of  the  Head  to  the  members, 
of  the  Son  of  man  to  the  sons  of  men,  whose  race-life 
is  founded  in  Him.  Jesus  Christ  laid  it  down  as  the 
highest  law,  under  that  of  love  to  God :  ''  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself, ^^  His  love  to  us  followed 
this  rule.  His  life  was  wrapped  up  in  ours.  By  such 
community  of  life  self-love  is  transfigured,  and  exalted 
into  the  purest  self- forgetting. 

Thus  it  is  with  true  marriage.  The  wedding  of  a 
human  pair  makes  each   the  other's  property.     They 


364  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

are  ''one  flesh"  (ven  31);  and  so  long  as  the  flesh 
endures  there  remains  this  consciousness  of  union, 
whose  violation  is  deadly  sin.  As  the  Church  is  not 
her  own,  nor  Christ  His  own  since  He  became  man 
with  men,  so  the  husband  and  wife  are  no  longer 
independent  and  self-complete  personalities,  but  in- 
corporated into  a  new  existence  common  to  both. 
Their  love  must  correspond  to  this  fact.  If  the  man 
loves  himself,  if  he  values  his  own  limbs  and  tends 
and  guards  from  injury  his  bodily  frame  (ver.  29), 
he  must  do  the  same  equally  by  his  wife;  for  her 
life  and  limbs  are  as  a  part  of  his  own.  This  the 
apostle  lays  down  as  an  obvious  duty.  Nature  teaches 
the  obligation,  by  every  manly  instinct. 

The  saying  the  apostle  quotes  in  verse  3 1  dates  from 
the  origin  of  the  human  family ;  it  is  taken  from  the 
lips  of  the  first  husband  and  father  of  the  race,  while 
as  yet  unstained  by  sin  (Gen,  ii.  23,  24).  Christ  infers 
from  it  the  singleness  and  indeHbility  of  the  marriage 
covenant.  But  this  doctrine,  natural  as  it  is,  was  not 
inferred  by  natural  religion.  The  cultivated  Greek 
took  a  wife  for  the  production  of  children.  Her 
rights  put  no  restriction  upon  his  appetite.  Love 
was  not  in  the  marriage  contract.  If  she  received  the 
maintenance  due  to  her  rank  and  the  mistress-ship  of 
the  house,  and  was  the  mother  of  his  lawful  children, 
she  had  all  that  a  free-born  woman  could  demand. 
The  slave-woman  had  no  rights.  Her  body  was  at 
her  owner's  disposal.  Nothing  in  Christianity  appeared 
more  novel  and  more  severe,  in  comparison  with  the 
dissolute  morals  of  the  time,  than  the  Christian  view 
of  marriage.  Even  Christ's  Jewish  disciples  seemed 
to  think  the  state  of  wedlock  intolerable  under  the 
condition   He   imposed.     This  want   of  reverence   and 


V. 22-33]  CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE.  365 

constancy  between  the  sexes  was  a  main  cause  of  the 
degeneracy  of  the  age.  All  virtues  disappear  with 
this  one.  Roman  manliness  and  uprightness,  Greek 
courtesy  and  courage,  filial  piety,  civic  worth,  loyalty 
in  friendship — the  qualities  that  once  in  a  high  degree 
adorned  the  classic  nations,  were  now  rare  amongst 
men.  In  the  most  exalted  ranks  infamous  vices 
flourished ;  and  purity  of  life  was  a  cause  for  odium 
and  suspicion. 

Amidst  this  seething  mass  of  corruption  the  Spirit 
of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  created  new  hearts  and  new 
homes.  It  kindled  a  pure  fire  on  the  desecrated 
hearth.  It  taught  man  and  woman  a  chaste  love  ;  and 
their  alliances  were  formed  "  in  sanctification  and 
honour,  not  in  the  passion  of  lust  as  it  is  with  the 
Gentiles  who  know  not  God"  (i  Thess.  iv.  ^6), 
Every  Christian  house,  thus  based  on  an  honourable 
and  religious  union,  became  the  centre  of  a  leaven  that 
wrought  upon  the  corrupt  society  around.  It  held 
forth  an  example  of  wedded  loyalty  and  domestic  joy 
beautiful  and  strange  in  that  loveless  Pagan  world. 
Children  grew  up  trained  in  pure  and  gentle  manners. 
From  that  hour  the  hope  of  a  better  day  began.  The 
influence  of  the  new  ideal,  filtrating  everywhere  into 
the  surrounding  heathenism  and  assimilating  even 
before  it  converted  the  hostile  world,  raised  society, 
though  gradually  and  with  many  relapses,  from  the 
extreme  debasement  of  the  age  of  the  Caesars.  Never 
subsequently  have  the  morals  of  civilized  mankind 
sunk  to  a  level  quite  so  low.  The  Christian  conception 
of  love  and  marriage  opened  a  new  era  for  mankind. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE. 

"The  Christ  is  the  head  of  the  Church,  being  Himself  the  Saviour 
of  the  body.  .  .  .  The  Church  is  subject  to  the  Christ  in  everything.  .  .  . 

"  The  Christ  loved  the  Chureh,  and  gave  Himself  up  for  her ;  that 
He  might  sanctify  her,  having  cleansed  her  by  the  washing  of  water 
with  the  word,  that  He  might  present  the  Church  to  Himself  a  glorious 
Church,  not  having  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing  ;  but  that  she 
should  be  holy  and  without  blemish.  .  .   . 

' '  The  Christ  [nourisheth  and  cherisheth]  the  Church ;  because  we 
are  members  of  His  body.  '  For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father 
and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife  ;  and  the  twain  shall  become 
one  flesh.'  This  mystery  is  great :  but  I  speak  in  regard  of  Christ  and 
of  the  Church." — Eph.  v.  23-32. 

WE  have  extracted  from  the  apostle's  homily  upon 
marriage  the  sentences  referring  to  Christ  and 
His  Church;  in  order  to  gather  up  their  collective 
import.  The  main  topic  of  the  epistle  here  again 
asserts  itself;  and  under  the  figure  of  marriage  St 
/  Paul  brings  to  its  conclusion  his  doctrine  on  the  subject 
of  the  Church.  This  passage  answers,  theologically,  a 
purpose  similar  to  that  of  the  allegory  of  Hagar  and 
Sarah  in  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians :  it  lights  up 
for  the  imagination  the  teaching  and  argument  of  the 
former  part  of  the  epistle ;  it  shows  how  the  doctrine 
of  Christ  and  the  Church  has  its  counterpart  in  nature, 
as  the  struggle  between  the  legal  and  evangelical  spirit 
had  its  counterpart  in  the  patriarchal  history. 

366 


V.  23-32.]  CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE.  367 

The  three  detached  paragraphs  present  us  three 
considerations,  of  which  we  shall  treat  the  second  first 
in  order  of  exposition  :  Christ's  love  to  the  Church ; 
His  authority  over  the  Church ;  and  the  mystery  of  the 
Churches  origin  in  Him. 

I.  "Husbands,  love  your  wives,  even  as  the  Christ 
also  loved  the  Church,  and  gave  up  Himself  for  her." 
This  is  parallel  to  the  declaration  of  Galatians  ii.  20 : 
"  He  loved  me  ;  He  gave  up  Himself  for  me."  The 
sacrifice  of  the  cross  has  at  once  its  personal  and  its 
collective  purpose.     Both  are  to  be  kept  in  mind. 

On  the  one  hand,  we  must  value  infinitely  and  joy- 
fully assert  our  individual  part  in  the  redeeming  love 
of  the  Son  of  God ;  but  we  must  equally  admit  the 
sovereign  rights  of  the  Church  in  the  Redeemer's 
passion.  Our  souls  bow  down  before  the  glory  of  the 
love  with  which  He  has  from  eternity  sought  her  for 
His  own.  There  is  in  some  Christians  an  absorption 
in  the  work  of  grace  within  their  own  hearts,  an 
individualistic  salvation-seeking  that,  like  all  selfish- 
ness, defeats  its  end ;  for  it  narrows  and  impoverishes 
the  inner  life  thus  sedulously  cherished.  The  Church 
does  not  exist  simply  for  the  benefit  of  individual  souls  ; 
it  is  an  eternal  institution,  with  an  affiance  to  Christ, 
a  calling  and  destiny  of  its  own ;  within  that  universal 
sphere  our  personal  destiny  holds  its  particular  place. 

It  is  "  the  Christ "  who  stands,  throughout  this  con-  ■ 
text  (vv.  23-29),  over  against  ''the  Church"  as  her 
Lover  and  Husband ;  whereas  in  the  context  of 
Galatians  ii.  20  we  read  "  Christ  "—the  bare  personal 
name — repeated  again  and  again  without  the  distin- 
guishing article.  Christ  is  the  Person  whom  the  sou  J 
knows  and  loves,  with  whom  it  holds  communion  in 
the  Spirit.     The  Christ  is  the  same  regarded  in  the  wide 


368  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS, 

scope  of  His  nature  and  office, — the  Christ  of  humanity 
and  of  the  ages.  "  The  Christ "  of  this  epistle  expands 
the  Saviour's  title  to  its  boundless  significance,  and 
gives  breadth  and  length  to  that  which  in  ^'Christ"  is 
gathered  up  into  a  single  point.* 

This  Christ  *^  gave  Himself  up  for  the  Church/' — 
yielded  Himself  to  the  death  which  the  sins  of  His 
people  merited  and  brought  upon  Him.  Under  the 
same  verb,  the  apostle  says  in  Romans  iv.  25  :  He 
"  was  delivered  because  of  our  trespasses,  and  raised  up 
because  of  our  justification  " — the  sacrifice  being  there 
regarded  on  its  passive  side.  Here,  as  in  Galatians 
ii.  20,  the  act  is  made  His  own, — a  voluntary  surrender. 
^'No  man  taketh  my  life  from  me,"  He  said  (Johnx.  18). 
In  His  case  alone  amongst  the  sons  of  men,  death  was 
neither  natural  nor  inevitable.  His  surrender  of  life 
was  an  absolute  sacrifice.  He  "  laid  down  His  life  for 
His  friends,"  as  no  other  friend  of  man  could  do — the 
One  who  died  for  all.  The  love  measured  by  this 
sacrifice  is  proportionately  great. 

The  sayings  of  verses  25-27  set  the  glory  of  the 
vicarious  death  in  a  vivid  light.  Of  such  worth  was 
the  person  of  the  Christ,  of  such  significance  and 
moral  value  His  sacrificial  death,  that  it  weighed  against 
the  trespass,  not  of  a  man — Paul  or  any  other — but  of 
a  world  of  men.  He  ^'purchased  through  His  own 
blood,"  said  Paul  to  the  Ephesian  elders,  *'  the  Church 
of  God  "  (Acts  XX.  28) — the  whole  flock  that  feeds  in 
the  pastures  of  the  Great  Shepherd,  that  has  passed 
or  will  pass  through  the  gates  of  His  fold.  Great  was 
the  honour  and  glory  with  which  he  was  crowned, 
when  led  as  victim  to  the  altar  of  the  world's  atone- 
ment (Heb.  ii.  9).     Who  will  not  say,   as  the  meek 

*  Compare  pp.  47,  83,  169,  189. 


V.  23-32.]  CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE.  369 


Son  of  man  treads  so  willingly  His  mournful  path  to 
Calvary,  "  Worthy  is  the  Lamb  ! "  Is  not  the  heavenly 
Bridegroom  worthy  of  the  bride,  that  He  consents  to 
win  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself ! 

He  is  worthy ;  and  she  must  be  made  worthy.  ^'  He 
gave  up  Himself,  that  He  might  sanctify  her, — that  He 
might  Himself  present  to  Himself  a  glorious  Church, 
not  having  spot  or  wrinkle  or  anything  of  the  kind, — 
that  she  may  be  holy  and  without  blemish."  The 
sanctification  of  the  Church  is  the  grand  purpose  ofN, 
redeeming  grace.  This  was  the  design  of  God  for  His 
sons  in  Christ  before  the  world's  foundation,  "  that  we 
should  be  holy  and  unblemished  before  Him "  (i.  4). 
This,  therefore,  was  the  end  of  Christ's  mission  upon 
earth;  this  was  the  intention  of  His  sacrificial  death. 
"  For  their  sakes,"  said  Jesus  concerning  His  disciples, 
^'  I  sanctify  myself,  that  they  also  may  be  sanctified  in 
truth"  (John  xvii.  19).  His  purchase  of  the  Church  "^^ 
is  no  selfish  act.  To  God  His  Father  Christ  devotes 
every  spirit  of  man  that  is  yielded  to  Him.  As  the 
Priest  of  mankind  it  was  His  office  thus  to  consecrate 
humanity,  which  is  already  in  purpose  and  in  essence 
"  sanctified  through  the  offering  of  the  body  of  Jesus 
Christ  once  for  all "  (Heb.  x.   10). 

Only  in  this  passage,  where  the  apostle  is  thinking 
of  the  preparation  of  the  Church  for  its  perfect  union 
with  its  Head,  does  he  name  Christ  as  our  Sanctifier; 
in  I  Corinthians  i.  2  he  comes  near  this  expression, 
addressing  his  readers  as  men  '^sanctified  in  Christ 
Jesus."  In  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  this  character 
is  largely  ascribed  to  Him,  being  the  function  of  His 
priesthood.  One  in  nature  with  the  sanctified,  Jesus 
our  great  Priest  "  sanctifies  us  through  His  own  blood," 
so  that  with  cleansed  consciences  we  may  draw  near 

24 


370  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


to  the  living  God.*  As  Christ  the  Priest  stands  towards 
His  people,  so  Christ  the  Husband  towards  His  Church. 
He  devotes  her  with  Himself  to  God.  He  cleanses  her 
that  she  may  dwell  with  Him  for  ever,  a  spotless  bride, 
dead  unto  sin  and  living  unto  God  through  Him. 

"  That  He  might  sanctify  her,  having  cleansed  her  in 
the  laver  of  water  by  the  word."  The  Church's  purifi- 
cation is  antecedent  in  thought  to  her  sanctification 
through  the  sacrifice  of  Christ ;  and  it  is  a  means  there- 
to. "Ye  were  washed,  ye  were  sanctified,"  writes  the 
I  apostle  in  i  Corinthians  vi.  1 1,  putting  the  two  things 
in  the  same  order.  It  is  the  order  of  doctrine  which 
he  has  laid  down  in  the  epistle  to  the  Romans,  where 
sanctification  is  built  on  the  foundation  laid  in  justifica- 
tion through  the  blood  of  Christ.  Through  the  virtue 
of  the  sacrificial  death  the  Church  in  all  her  members 
was  washed  from  the  defilements  of  sin,  that  she  might 
enter  upon  God's  service.  Of  the  same  initial  purifica- 
tion of  the  heart  St  John  writes  in  his  first  epistle 
(i.  7-9) :  "  The  blood  of  Jesus,  God's  Son,  cleanses  us 
from  all  sin.  .  .  .  He  is  faithful  and  just,  that  He  should 
forgive  us  our  sins  and  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteous- 
ness." This  is  ''the  redemption  through  Christ's 
blood,"  for  which  St  Paul  in  his  first  words  of  praise 
called  upon  us  to  bless  God  (i.  7).  It  is  the  special 
distinction  of  the  New  Covenant,  which  renders  possible 
its  other  gifts  of  grace,  that  "  the  worshippers  once 
cleansed"  need  have  "no  further  consciousness  of 
sins"  (Heb.  x.  2,  14-18).  In  the  theological  use  here 
/  made  of  the  idea  of  cleansing,  St  Paul  comes  into 
/  line  with  St  John  and  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
The  purification  is  nothing  else  than  that  which  he  has 
elsewhere  styled  justification.     He  employs  the  terms 

*  Heb.  ii.  9-12,  ix.  14,  15,  x.  5-22,  xiii.  12. 


V.  23-32.]  CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE.  371 

synonymously  in    the  later  epistle    to   Titus   (ii.    14; 
iii.  7). 

"  Having  cleansed "  is  a  phrase  congruous  with  the 
figure  of  the  laver,  or  bath  (comp.  again  Tit.  iii.  5-7), — ■ 
an  image  suggested,  as  one  would  think,  by  the  bride- 
bath  of  the  wedding-day  in  the  ancient  marriage  customs. 
To  this  St  Paul  sees  a  counterpart  in  baptism,  ''the 
laver  of  water  in  the  word."  The  cleansing  and  withal 
refreshing  virtues  of  water  made  it  an  obvious  symbol  of 
regeneration.  The  emblem  is  twofold ;  it  pictures  at  once 
the  removal  of  guilt,  and  the  imparting  of  new  strength. 
One  goes  into  the  bath  exhausted,  and  covered  with 
dust ;  one  comes  out  clean  and  fresh.  Hence  the  baptism 
of  the  new  believer  in  Christ  had,  in  St  Paul's  view,  a 
double  aspect.*  It  looked  backward  to  the  old  life  of 
sin  abandoned,  and  forward  to  the  new  life  of  holiness 
commenced.  Thus  it  corresponded  to  the  burial  of 
Jesus  (Rom.  vi.  4),  the  point  of  juncture  between  death 
and  resurrection.  Baptism  served  as  the  visible  and 
formal  expression  of  the  soul's  passage  through  the 
gate  of  forgiveness  into  the  sanctified  life. 

Along  with  this  older  teaching,  a  further  and  kindred 
significance  is  now  given  to  the  baptismal  rite.  It 
denotes  the  soul's  affiance  to  its  Lord.  -  As  the  maiden's 
bath  on  the  morning  of  her  marriage  betokened  the 
purity  in  which  she  united  herself  to  her  betrothed,  so 
the  baptismal  laver  summons  the  Church  to  present 
herself  ''a  chaste  virgin  unto  Christ"  (2  Cor.  xi.  2). 
It  signifies  and  seals  her  forgiveness,  and  pledges  her 
in  all  her  members  to  await  the  Bridegroom  in  garments 
unspotted  from  the  world,  with  the  pure  and  faithful 
love  which  will  not  be  ashamed  before  Him  at  His 
coming.     For  this  end  Christ  set  up  the  baptismal  laver. 

*  See  Rom.  vi.  i-ii  ;  Col.  ii.  ii,  12;  i  Cor.  x.  2,  xii.  13. 


372  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Upon  our  construction  of  the  text,  the  words  "  that  He 
might  sanctify  her  "  express  a  purpose  complete  in  itself 
— viz.,  that  of  the  Church's  consecration  to  God.  Then 
follow  the  means  to  this  sanctification  :  "  having  cleansed 
her  in  the  water-bath  through  the  word," — which  wash- 
ing, at  the  same  time,  has  its  purpose  on  the  part  of  the 
Lord  who  appointed  it — viz.,  ^' that  He  might  present 
her  to  Himself"  a  glorious  and  spotless  Church. 

At  the  end  of  verse  27  the  sentence  doubles  back  upon 
itself,  in  Paul's  characteristic  fashion.  The  twofold 
aim  of  Christ's  sacrifice  of  love  on  the  Church's  behalf 
— viz.,  her  consecration  to  God,  and  her  spotless  purity 
fitting  her  for  perfect  union  with  her  Lord — is  restated 
in  -the  final  clause,  by  way  of  contrast  with  the  ^'  spots 
and  wrinkles  and  such-like  things"  that  are  washed 
out :  "  but  that  she  may  be  holy  and  without  blemish." 

We  passed  by,  for  the  moment,  the  concluding 
phrase  of  verse  26,  with  which  the  apostle  qualifies  his 
reference  to  the  baptismal  cleansing;  we  are  by  no 
means  forgetting  it.  "  Having  cleansed  her,"  he  writes, 
./*  by  the  laver  of  water  in  [the]  wordy  This  adjunct  is 
,  deeply  significant.  It  impresses  on  baptism  a  spiritual 
character,  and  excludes  every  theurgic  conception  of 
the  rite,  every  doctrine  that  gives  to  it  in  the  least 
degree  a  mechanical  efficacy.  '^Without  the  word 
the  sacrament  could  only  influence  man  by  magic,  out- 
ward or  inward "  (Dorner).  The  ''  word "  of  which 
the  apostle  speaks,*  is  that  of  chapter  vi.  17,  ^' God's 
word — the  Spirit's  sword";  of  Romans  x.  8,  ^^the  word 
of  faith  which  we  proclaim " ;  of  Luke  i.  37,  ''  the 
word   from  God  which   shall  not    be   powerless " ;  of 

*  'Ej/  p-rifxari.  A6yos  is  word  as  expressive  of  thought.  "Prj/uia,  the 
utterance  of  a  living  voice,  — a  sentence,  pTottotmcement,  message  \  it  is 
the  Greek  term  employed  in  all  the  passages  here  cited. 


V.  23-32.]  CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE.  373 

John  xvii.  8,  etc.,  "  the  words "  that  the  Father  had 
given  to  the  Son,  and  the  Son  in  turn  to  men.  It  is 
the  Divine  utterance,  spoken  and  beHeved.  In  this 
accompaniment  lies  the  power  of  the  laver.  The 
baptismal  affusion  is  the  outward  seal  of  an  inward 
transaction,  that  takes  place  in  the  spirit  of  beheving 
utterers  and  hearers  of  the  gospel  word.  This  saving 
word  receives  in  baptism  its  concrete  expression  ;  it 
becomes  the  verbum  visihile. 

The  ''word"  in  question  is  defined. in  Romans  x. 
8,  9 :  "  If  thou  shalt  confess  with  thy  mouth  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  believe  in  thy  heart  that  God  raised  Him 
from  the  dead,  thou  shalt  be  saved  ! "  Let  the  hearer 
respond,  ''  I  do  so  confess  and  believe,"  on  the  strength 
of  this  confession  he  is  baptized,  and  in  the  conjoint 
act  of  faith  and  baptism — in  the  obedience  of  faith  signified 
by  his  baptism — he  is  saved  from  his  past  sins  and 
made  an  heir  of  life  eternal.  The  rite  is  the  simplest 
and  most  universal  in  application  one  can  conceive. 
In  heathen  countries  baptism  recovers  its  primitive 
significance,  as  the  decisive  act  of  rupture  with  idolatry 
and  acceptance  of  Christ  as  Lord,  which  in  our  usage 
is  often  overlaid  and  forgotten. 

This  interpretation  gives  a  key  to  the  obscure  text 
of  St  Peter  upon  the  same  subject  (i  Ep.  iii.  21): 
"  Baptism  saves  you — not  the  putting  away  of  the  filth 
of  the  flesh,  but  the  questioning  with  regard  to  God  of 
a  good  conscience,  through  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ."  The  vital  constituent  of  the  rite  is  not  the 
appHcation  of  water  to  the  body,  but  the  challenge 
which  the  word  makes  therein  to  the  conscience 
respecting  the  things  of  God, — the  inquiry  thus  con- 
veyed, to  which  a  sincere  believer  in  the  resurrection 
of  Christ  makes  joyful  and   ready  answer.     It  is,  in 


374  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

fine,  the  appeal  to  faith  contained  in  baptism  that  gives 
to  the  latter  its  saving  worth. 

The  ^'word"  that  makes  Christian  ordinances  vahd,  is 
not  the  past  utterance  of  God  alone,  which  may  remain 
a  dead  letter,  preserved  in  the  oracles  of  Scripture  or 
the  official  forms  of  the  Church,  but  that  word  alive  and 
\  active,  re-spoken  and  transmitted  from  soul  to  soul  by 
the  breath  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Without  this  animating 
word  of  faith,  baptism  is  but  the  pouring  or  sprinkhng 
of  so  much  water  on  the  body ;  the  Lord's  Supper  is 
only  the  consumption  of  so  much  bread  and  wine. 

All  the  nations  will  at  last,  in  obedience  to  Christ's 
command,  be  baptized  into  the  thrice-holy  Name  ;  and 
the  work  of  baptism  will  be  complete.  Then  the 
Church  will  issue  from  her  bath,  cleansed  more  effect- 
ually than  the  old  world  that  emerged  with  Noah  from 
the  deluge.  Every  "  spot  and  wrinkle  "  will  pass  from 
her  face :  the  worldly  passions  that  stained  her  features, 
the  fears  and  anxieties  that  knit  her  brow  or  furrowed 
her  cheek,  will  vanish  away.  In  her  radiant  beauty, 
in  her  chaste  and  spotless  love,  Christ  will  lead  forth 
His  Church  before  His  Father  and  the  holy  angels, 
^'  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband."  From  eternity 
He  set  His  love  upon  her ;  on  the  cross  He  won 
her  back  from  her  infidelity  at  the  price  of  His  blood. 
Through  the  ages  He  has  been  wooing  her  to  Himself, 
and  schooling  her  in  wise  and  manifold  ways  that  she 
might  be  fit  for  her  heavenly  caUing.  Now  the  end 
of  this  long  task  of  redemption  has  arrived.  The 
message  goes  forth  to  Christ's  friends  in  all  the  worlds : 
"  Come,  gather  yourselves  to  the  great  supper  of  God  ! 
The  marriage  of  the  Lamb  is  come,  and  His  wife  hath 
made  herself  ready  !  He  hath  given  her  fine  linen 
bright  and  pure,  that  she  may  array  herself.     Let  us 


V.  23-32.]  CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE.  375 

rejoice  and  exult,  and  give  to  Him  the  glory ! " 
Through  what  cleansing  fires,  through  what  baptisms 
even  of  blood  she  has  still  to  pass  ere  the  consum- 
mation is  reached,  He  only  knows  who  loved  her 
and  gave  Himself  for  her.  He  will  spare  to  His 
Church  nothing,  either  of  bounty  or  of  trial,  that  her 
perfection  needs. 

II.  Concerning   Christ's    lordly   authority   over   His  ^ 
Church  we  have  had  occasion  to  speak  already  in  other 
places.     A  word  or  two  may  be  added  here. 

We  acknowledge  the  Church  to  be  "  subject  to 
Christ  in  everything."  We  proclaim  ourselves,  like 
the  apostle,  "slaves  of  Christ  Jesus."  But  this  sub- 
jection is  too  often  a  form  rather  than  a  fact.  In 
protesting  our  independence  of  Popish  and  priestly 
lords  of  God's  heritage,  we  are  sometimes  in  danger  of 
ignoring  our  dependence  upon  Him,  and  of  dethroning, 
in  effect,  the  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Christian  com-  ^ 
munities  act  and  speak  too  much  in  the  style  of 
political  republics.  They  assume  the  attitude  of  self- 
directing  and  self-responsible  bodies. 

The  Church  is  no  democracy,  any  more  than  it  is  ' 
an  aristocracy  or  a  sacerdotal  absolutism :  it  is  a 
Christocracy.  The  people  are  not  rulers  in  the  house 
of  God  ;  they  are  the  ruled,  laity  and  ministers  alike. 
"  One  is  your  Master,  even  the  Christ ;  and  all  ye  are  ^ 
brethren."  We  acknowledge  this  in  theory;  but  our 
language  and  spirit  would  oftentimes  be  other  than 
they  are,  if  we  were  penetrated  by  the  sense  of  the 
continual  presence  and  majesty  of  the  Lord  Christ  in 
our  assemblies.  Royalties  and  nobilities,  and  the 
holders  of  popular  power — all  whose  ''  names  are 
named  in  this  world,"  along  with  the  principalities  in 
heavenly  places,  when  they  come  into  the  precincts  of 


376  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

the  Church  must  lay  aside  their  robes  and  forget  their 
titles,  and  speak  humbly  as  in  the  Master's  presence. 
What  is  it  to  the  glorious  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  that 
Lord  So-and-so  wears  a  coronet  and  owns  half  a 
county  ?  or  that  Midas  can  fill  her  coffers,  if  he  is 
pleased  and  humoured  ?  or  that  this  or  that  orator 
guides  at  his  will  the  fierce  democracy  ?  He  is  no 
more  than  a  man  who  will  die,  and  appear  before 
the  judgement-seat  of  Christ.  The  Church's  protec- 
tion from  human  tyranny,  from  schemes  of  ambition, 
from  the  intrusion  of  political  methods  and  designs,  lies 
in  her  sense  of  the  splendour  and  reahty  of  Christ's 
dominion,  and  of  her  own  eternal  fife  in  Him. 

III.  We  come  now  to  the  profound  mystery  dis- 
closed, or  half-disclosed  at  the  end  of  this  section,  that  of 
tPie  origination  of  the  Church  from  Christy  which  accounts 
for  His  love  to  the  Church  and  His  authority  over  her. 
He  nourishes  and  cherishes  the  Church,  we  are  told  in 
verses  29,  30,  ''because  we  are  members  of  His  body." 

Now,  this  membership  is,  in  its  origin,  as  old  as 
creation.  God  ''  chose  us  in  Christ  before  the  world's 
foundation"  (i.  4).  We  were  created  in  the  Son  of 
God's  love,  antecedently  to  our  redemption  by  Him. 
Such  is  the  teaching  of  this  and  the  companion  epistle 
(Col.  i.  14-18).  Christ  recovers  through  the  cross  that 
which  pertains  inherently  to  Him,  which  belonged  to 
Him  by  nature  and  is  as  a  part  of  Himself.  From 
this  standpoint  the  connexion  of  verses  30  and  31 
becomes  intelligible.*     It  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  "  on 


*  The  words  "of  His  flesh  and  of  His  bones,"  following  "members 
of  His  body  "  in  the  A.V.,  appear  to  be  an  ancient  gloss  adopted  by 
the  Greek  copyists,  which  was  suggested  by  Gen.  ii.  23.  They  are 
unsuitable  to  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  union,  and  interrupt  rather  than  help 
the  apostle's  exposition. 


V.  23-32.]  CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE.  377 

account  of  this";  but  ''in  correspondence  with  this"* 
says  the  apostle,  suiting  the  original  phrase  to  his 
purpose.  The  derivation  of  Eve  from  the  body  of 
Adam,  as  that  is  affirmed  in  the  mysterious  words  of 
Genesis,  is  analogous  to  the  derivation  of  the  Church 
from  Christ.  The  latter  relationship  existed  in  its  ideal, 
and  as  conceived  in  the  purpose  of  God,  prior  to  the 
appearance  of  the  human  race.  In  St  Paul's  theory, 
the  origin  of  woman  in  man  which  forms  the  basis  of 
marriage  in  Scripture,  looked  further  back  to  the  origin 
of  humanity  in  Christ  Himself. 

The  train  of  thought  that  the  apostle  resumes  here 
he  followed  in  i  Corinthians  xi.  3-12  :  "I  would  have 
you  know  that  the  head  of  every  man  is  the  Christ,  and 
the  head  of  the  woman  is  the  man,  and  the  head  of 
Christ  is  God.  .  .  .  Man  is  the  image  and  glory  of 
God  :  but  the  woman  is  the  glory  of  the  man.  For 
the  man  is  not  of  the  woman ;  but  the  woman  of  the 
man."     So  it  is  with  Christ  and  His  bride  the  Church. 

''  The  Lord  God  caused  a  deep  sleep  to  fall  upon 
the  man,  and  he  slept ;  and  He  took  one  of  his  ribs, 
and  closed  up  the  flesh  instead  thereof:  and  the  rib 
which  the  Lord  God  had  taken  from  the  man,  made  He 
a  woman,  and  brought  her  to  the  man.  And  the  man 
said. 

This  is  now  bone  of  my  bones,  and  flesh  of  my  flesh  : 
She  shall  be  called  Woman  {^Isshah^  because  she  was  taken  out 
of  Man  {Ishl. 
Therefore  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  his  mother,  and  shall  cleave 
unto  his  wife : 
And  they  shall  be  one  flesh  "  (Gen.  ii.  21-24). 


*  St  Paul  changes  the  "Eivenev  toijtov  of  the  original  to  'AptI  Todrov, 
which  conveys  the  idea  that  marriage  has  its  counterpart  in  the  fact 
that  we  are  members  of  Christ. 


378  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

Thus  the  first  father  of  our  race  prophesied,  and 
sang  his  wedding  song.  In  some  mystical,  but  real  ' 
sense,  marriage  is  a  reunion,  the  reincorporation  of 
what  had  been  sundered.  Seeking  his  other  self,  the 
complement  of  his  nature,  the  man  breaks  the  ties  of 
birth  and  founds  a  new  home.  So  the  inspired  author 
of  the  passage  in  Genesis  explains  the  origin  of 
marriage,  and  the  instinct  which  draws  the  bridegroom 
to  his  bride. 

But  our  apostle  sees  within  this  declaration  a  deeper 
truth,  kept  secret  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 
When  he  speaks  of  ''  this  great  mystery!^  he  means 
thereby  not  marriage  itself,  but  the  saying  of  Adam 
about  it.  This  text  was  a  standing  problem  to  the 
Jewish  interpreters.  *'  But  for  my  part,"  says  the 
apostle,  "  I  refer  it  to  Christ  and  to  the  Church." 
St  Paul,  who  has  so  often  before  drawn  the  parallel 
between  Adam  and  Christ,  by  the  light  of  this  analogy 
perceives  a  new  and  rich  meaning  in  the  old  dark 
sentence.  It  helps  him  to  see  how  believers  in  Christ, 
forming  collectively  His  body,  are  not  only  grafted  into 
Him  (as  he  puts  it  in  the  epistle  to  the  Romans),  but 
were  derived  from  Him  and  formed  in  the  very  mould 
of  His  nature. 

What  is  affirmed  in  Colossians  i.  1 6,  17  concerning 
the  universe  in  general,  is  true  in  its  perfect  degree  of 
redeemed  humanity  :  ''  In  Him  were  created  all  things," 
as  well  as  "  through  Him  and  for  Him."  Eve  was 
created  in  Adam ;  and  Adam  in  Christ.  We  are 
"  partakers  of  a  Divine  nature,"  by  our  spiritual  origin 
in  Him  who  is  the  image  of  God  and  the  root  of 
humanity.  The  union  of  the  first  human  pair  and 
every  true  marriage  since,  being  in  effect,  as  Adam 
puts  it,  a  restoration  and  redintegration,  symbolizes  the 


V.  23-32.]  CHRIST  AND  HIS  BRIDE.  379 

fellowship  of  Christ  with  mankind.  This  intention  was 
in  the  mind  of  God  at  the  institution  of  human  hfe ;  it 
took  expression  in  the  prophetic  words  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis,  whose  deeper  sense  St  Paul  is  now  able  for 
the  first  time  to  .unfold. 

In  our  union  through  grace  and  faith  with  Christ 
crucified,  we  realize  again  the  original  design  of  our 
being.  Christ  has  purchased  by  His  blood  no  new  or 
foreign  bride,  but  her  who  was  His  from  eternity, — the 
child  who  had  wandered  from  the  Father's  house,  the 
betrothed  who  had  left  her  Lord  and  Spouse.  In 
regard  to  this  ''  mystery  of  our  coherence  in  Christ," 
Richard  Hooker  says,  in  words  that  suggest  many 
aspects  of  this  doctrine  :  "  The  Church  is  in  Christ,  as 
Eve  was  in  Adam.  Yea,  by  grace  we  are  every  one  of 
us  in  Christ  and  in  His  Church,  as  by  nature  we  are 
in  our  first  parents.  God  made  Eve  of  the  rib  of  Adam. 
And  His  Church  He  frameth  out  of  the  very  flesh,  the 
very  wounded  and  bleeding  side  of  the  Son  of  man. 
His  body  crucified  and  His  blood  shed  for  the  hfe  of 
the  world  are  the  true  elements  of  that  heavenly  being 
which  maketh  us  such  as  Himself  is  of  whom  we  come. 
For  which  cause  the  words  of  Adam  may  be  fitly  the 
words  of  Christ  concerning  His  Church,  '  flesh  of  my 
flesh  and  bone  of  my  bones — a  true  native  extract  out 
of  mine  own  body.'  So  that  in  Him,  even  according 
to  His  manhood,  we  according  to  our  heavenly  being 
are  as  branches  in  that  root  out  of  which  they  grow."  * 

*  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  v.  56.  7. 


CHAPTER   XXVII. 

THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD. 

*'  Children,  obey  youi-  parents  in  the  Lord  :  for  this  is  right.  '  Plonour 
thy  father  and  mother,'  which  is  a  first  commandment,  given  in  promise, 
— '  that  it  may  be  well  with  thee,  and  thou  mayest  live  long  on  the 
earth.'  And,  ye  fathers,  provoke  not  your  children  to  wrath:  but 
nurture  them  in  the  chastening  and  admonition  of  the  Lord. 

"Servants,  be  obedient  to  them  that  according  to  the  flesh  are  your 
lords,  with  fear  and  trembling,  in  singleness  of  your  heart,  as  unto  the 
Christ ;  not  in  the  way  of  eyeservice,  as  men-pleasers  ;  but  as  servants 
of  Christ,  doing  the  will  of  God  from  the  soul;  with  good  will  doing 
service,  as  unto  the  Lord,  and  not  unto  men  :  knowing  that  whatsoever 
good  thing  each  one  doeth,  the  same  shall  he  receive  again  from  the 
Lord,  whether  he  be  bond  or  free.  And,  ye  lords,  do  the  same  things 
unto  them,  and  forbear  threatening  :  knowing  that  both  their  Lord  and 
yours  is  in  heaven,  and  there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with  Him." — 
Ei'H.  vi.  1-9. 

THE  Christian  family  is  the  cradle  and  the  fortress 
of  the  Christian  faith.  Here  its  virtues  shine 
most  brightly  ;  and  by  this  channel  its  influence  spreads 
through  society  and  the  course  of  generations.  Marriage 
has  been  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  God ;  it  is 
made  single,  chaste  and  enduring,  according  to  the  law 
of  creation  and  the  pattern  of  Christ's  union  with  His 
Church.  With  parents  thus  united,  family  honour  is 
secure  ;  and  a  basis  is  laid  for  reverence  and  discipline 
within  the  house. 

I.  Thus  the  apostle  turns,  in  the  opening  words  of 
chapter  vi.,  from  the  husband  and  wife  to  the  children 

380 


vi.  1-9.]  THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD.  381 

of  the  household.  He  addresses  them  as  present  in  the 
assembly  where  his  letter  is  read.  St  Paul  accounted 
the  children  '^holy/'  if  but  one  parent  belonged  to  the 
Church  (i  Cor.  vii.  14).  They  were  baptized,  as  we 
presume,  with  their  fathers  or  mothers,  and  admitted, 
under  due  precautions,*  to  the  fellowship  of  the  Church 
so  far  as  their  age  allowed.  We  cannot  limit  this  ex- 
hortation to  children  of  adult  age.  The  ^'  discipline  and 
admonition  of  the  Lord  "  prescribed  in  verse  4,  belong 
to  children  of  tender  years  and  under  parental  control. 

Obedience  is  the  law  of  childhood.  It  is,  in  great  y 
part,  the  child's  religion,  to  be  practised  ^'  in  the  Lord." 
The  reverence  and  love,  full  of  a  sweet  mystery,  which 
the  Christian  child  feels  towards  its  Saviour  and 
heavenly  King,  add  new  sacredness  to  the  claims  of 
father  and  mother.  Jesus  Christ,  the  Head  over  all 
things,  is  the  orderer  of  the  life  of  boys  and  girls.  His 
love  and  His  might  guard  the  little  one  in  the  tendance 
of  its  parents.  The  wonderful  love  of  parents  to  their 
offspring,  and  the  awful  authority  with  which  they  are 
invested,  come  from  the  source  of  human  life  in  God. 

The  Latin  pietas  impressed  a  religious  character 
upon  filial  duty.  This  word  signified  at  once  dutiful- 
ness  towards  the  gods,  and  towards  parents  and 
kindred.  In  the  strength  of  its  family  ties  and  its  deep 
filial  reverence  lay  the  secret  of  the  moral  vigour  and 
the  unmatched  discipline  of  the  Roman  commonwealth. 


*  We  cannot  absolutely  prove  infant  baptism  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment texts  adduced  on  its  behalf;  but  they  afford  a  strong  presumption 
in  its  favour,  which  is  confirmed  on  the  one  hand  by  the  analogy 
of  circumcision,  and  on  the  other  by  the  immemorial  usage  of  the 
early  Church.  Titus  i.  6  shows  that  stress  was  laid  on  the  faith  of 
children,  and  that  discrimination  was  used  in  their  recognition  as 
Church  members. 


382  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  history  of  ancient  Rome  affords  a  splendid  illus- 
tration of  the  fifth  commandment. 

For  this  is  right,  says  the  apostle,  appealing  to  the 
instincts  of  natural  religion.  The  child's  conscience 
begins  here.  FiUal  obedience  is  the  primary  form  of 
duty.  The  loyalties  of  after  life  take  their  colour  from 
the  lessons  learnt  at  home,  in  the  time  of  dawning 
reason  and  incipient  will.  Hard  indeed  is  the  evil 
to  remove,  where  in  the  plastic  years  of  childhood 
obedience  has  been  associated  with  base  fear,  with 
distrust  or  deceit,  where  it  has  grown  sullen  or  obse- 
quious in  habit.  From  this  root  of  bitterness  there 
spring  rank  growths  of  hatred  toward  authority, 
jealousies,  treacheries,  and  stubbornness.  Obedience 
rendered  ''  in  the  Lord "  will  be  frank  and  willing, 
careful  and  constant,  such  as  that  which  Jesus  rendered 
to  the  Father. 

St  Paul  reminds  the  children  of  the  law  of  the  Ten 
Words,  taught  to  them- in  their  earhest  essons  from 
Scripture.  He  calls  the  command  in  question  ^^  a  first 
[or  chiefs  commandment"— just  as  the  great  rule, 
"Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God,"  is  the  first  com- 
mandment ;  for  this  is  no  secondary  rule  or  minor 
precept,  but  one  on  which  the  continuance  of  the 
Church  and  the  welfare  of  society  depend.  It  is  a  law 
fundamental  as  birth  itself,  written  not  on  the  statute- 
book  alone  but  on  the  tables  of  the  heart. 

Moreover,  it  is  a  ^'command  in  promise  " — that  takes 
the  form  of  promise,  and  holds  out  to  obedience  a  bright 
future.    The  two  predicates—"  first "  and  ''  in  promise  " 

as  we  take  it,  are  distinct.     To  merge  them  into  one 

blunts  their  meaning.  This  commandment  is  primary 
in  its  importance,  and  promissory  in  its  import.  The 
promise  is  quoted  from  Exodus  xx.   12,  as  it  stands 


vi.  1-9.]  THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD.  383 

in  the  Septuagint,  where  the  Greek  Christian  children 
would  read  it.  But  the  last  clause  is  abbreviated ; 
St  Paul  writes  "  upon  the  earth  "  in  place  of  "  the  good 
land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee."  This  bless- 
ing is  the  heritage  of  dutiful  children  in  every  land. 
Those  who  have  watched  the  history  of  godly  families 
of  their  acquaintance,  will  have  seen  the  promise 
verified.  The  obedience  of  childhood  and  youth 
rendered  to  a  wise  Christian  rule,  forms  in  the  young 
nature  the  habits  of  self-control  and  self-respect,  of 
diligence  and  promptitude  and  faithfulness  and  kindli- 
ness of  heart,  which  are  the  best  guarantees  for  happi- 
ness and  success  in  life.  Through  parental  nurture 
''godliness"  secures  its  "promise  of  the  life  that 
now  is." 

Children  are  exhorted  to  submission  :  fathers  to 
gentleness.  "Do  not,"  the  apostle  says,  "anger  your 
children " ;  in  the  corresponding  place  in  Colossians, 
*'Do  not  irritate  your  children,  lest  they  be  disheart- 
ened" (ch.  iii.  21).  In  these  parallel  texts  two  distinct 
verbs  are  rendered  by  the  one  English  word  "  provoke." 
The  Colossian  passage  warns  against  the  chafing  effect 
of  parental  exactions  and  fretfulness,  that  tend  to  break 
the  child's  spirit  and  spoil  its  temper.  Our  text  warns 
the  father  against  angering  his  child  by  unfair  or 
oppressive  treatment.  From  this  verb  comes  the  noun 
"  wrath  "  (or  "  provocation  ")  used  in  chapter  iv.  26, 
denoting  that  stirring  of  anger  which  gives  peculiar 
occasion  to  the  devil. 

Not  that  the  father  is  forbidden  to  cross  his  child's 
wishes,  or  to  do  anything  or  refuse  anything  that  may 
excite  its  anger.  Nothing  is  worse  for  a  child  than  to 
find  that  parents  fear  its  displeasure,  and  that  it  will 
gain  its  ends  by  passion.     But  the  father  must  not  be 


384  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

exasperating,  must  not  needlessly  thwart  the  child's 
inclinations  and  excite  in  order  to  subdue  its  anger,  as 
some  will  do  even  of  set  purpose,  thinking  that  in  this 
way  obedience  is  learnt.  This  policy  may  secure  sub- 
mission ;  but  it  is  gained  at  the  cost  of  a  rankling  sense 
of  injustice. 

Household  rule  should  be  equally  firm  and  kind, 
neither  provoking  nor  avoiding  the  displeasure  of  its* 
subjects,  inflicting  no  severity  for  severity's  sake,  but 
shrinking  from  none  that  fidehty  demands.  With  much 
parental  fondness,  there  is  sometimes  in  family  govern- 
ment a  want  of  seriousness  and  steady  principle,  an 
absence  in  father  or  mother  of  the  sense  that  they 
are  dealing  with  moral  and  responsible  beings  in  their 
little  ones,  and  not  with  toys,  which  is  reflected  in  the 
caprice  and  self-indulgence  of  the  children's  maturer 
life.  Such  parents  will  give  account  hereafter  of  their 
stewardship  with  an  inconsolable  grief. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  insist  on  the  apostle's 
exhortation  to  treat  children  kindly.  For  them  these 
are  days  of  Paradise,  compared  with  times  not  far 
distant.  Never  were  the  wants  and  the  fancies  of  these 
small  mortals  catered  for  as  they  are  now.  In  some 
households  the  danger  lies  at  the  opposite  extreme 
from  that  of  over-strictness.  The  children  are  idolized. 
Not  their  comfort  and  welfare  only,  but  their  humours 
and  caprices  become  the  law  of  the  house.  They  are 
"nourished"  indeed,  but  not  "in  the  discipline  and 
admonition  of  the  Lord."  It  is  a  great  unkindness  to 
treat  our  children  so  that  they  shall  be  strangers  to 
hardship  and  restriction,  so  that  they  shall  not  know 
what  real  obedience  means,  and  have  no  reverence 
for  age,  no  habits  of  deference  and  self-denial.  It  is 
the  way  to  breed  monsters   of  selfishness,   pampered 


vi.  1-9.]  THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD.  385 


creatures  who  will   be  useless  and  miserable  in   adult 
life. 

'^  Discipline  and  admonition  "  are  distinguished  as 
positive  and  negative  terms.  The  first  is  the  "  train- 
ing up  of  the  child  in  the  way  that  he  should  go  " ;  the 
second  checks  and  holds  him  back  from  the  ways  in 
which  he  should  not  go.  The  former  word  {paideid) — 
denoting  primarily  treating-as-a-boy — signifies  very  often 
'*  chastisement  "  ;  *  but  it  has  a  wider  sense,  embracing 
instruction  besides.!  It  includes  the  whole  course  of 
training  by  which  the  boy  is  reared  into  a  man. — 
Adjnonition  is  a  still  more  familiar  word  with  St  Paul.  J 
It  may  be  reproof  bearing  upon  errors  in  the  past ;  or 
it  may  be  warning,  that  points  out  dangers  lying  in 
the  future.  Both  these  services  parents  owe  to  their 
children.  Admonition  implies  faults  in  the  nature  of 
the  child,  and  wisdom  in  the  father  to  see  and  correct 
them. 

"  Foolishness,"  says  the  Hebrew  proverb,  ^'  is  bound 
up  in  the  heart  of  a  child."  In  the  Old  Testament 
discipline  there  was  something  over-stern.  The  "  hard- 
ness of  heart "  censured  by  the  Lord  Jesus,  which 
allowed  of  two  mothers  in  the  house,  put  barriers 
between  the  father  and  his  offspring  that  rendered  ''  the 
rod  of  correction"  more  needful  than  it  is  under  the 
rule  of  Christ.  But  correction,  in  gentler  or  severer 
sort,  there  must  be,  so  long  as  children  spring  from 
sinful  parents.  The  child's  conscience  responds  to  the 
kindly  and  searching  word  of  reproof,  to  the  admonition 
of  love.  This  faithful  dealing  with  his  children  wins 
for  the  father  in  the  end  a  deep  gratitude,  and  makes 

*   I  Cor.  xi.  32;  Heb.  xii.  5,  ii,  etc. 

f  Acts  vii,  22,  xxii.  3  ;  Rom.  ii.  20  ;  2  Tim.  ii.  25,  iii.  14. 
%   I  Cor.  X.  II  ;  Col.  i.  28,  iii.  16  ;  I  Thess.  v.  14,  etc. 

25 


386  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

his    memory  a  guard  in  days   of  temptation   and   an 
object  of  tender  reverence. 

The  child's  "  obedience:  m  the  Lord**  is  its  response 
to  "  the  discipHne  and  admonition  of  the  Lord "  exer- 
cised by  its  parents.  The  discipline  which  wise 
Christian  fathers  give  their  children,  is  the  Lord's 
discipline  applied  through  them.  ''Correction  and 
instruction  should  proceed  from  the  Lord  and  be 
directed  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  in  such  a  way 
that  it  is  not  so  much  the  father  who  corrects 
his  children  and  teaches  them,  as  the  Lord  through 
him "  (Monod).  Thus  the  Father  of  whom  every 
family  on  earth  is  named,  within  each  Christian  house 
works  all  in  all.  Thus  the  chief  Shepherd,  through 
His  under-shepherds,  guides  and  feeds  the  lambs  of 
His  flock.  By  the  gate  of  His  fold  fathers  and  mothers 
themselves  have  entered  ;  and  the  little  ones  follow 
with  them.  In  the  pastures  of  His  word  they  nourish 
them,  and  rule  them  with  His  rod  and  staff.  To  their 
offspring  they  become  an  image  of  the  Good  Shepherd 
and  the  Father  in  heaven.  Their  office  teaches  them 
more  of  God's  fatherly  ways  with  themselves.  From 
their  children's  humbleness  and  confidence,  from  their 
simple  wisdom,  their  hopes  and  fears  and  ignorances, 
the  elders  learn  deep  and  affecting  lessons  concerning 
their  own  relations  to  the  heavenly  Father. 

St  Paul's  instruction  to  fathers  applies  to  all  who  have 
the  charge  of  children  :  to  schoolmasters  of  every  degree, 
whose  work,  secular  as  it  may  be  called,  touches  the 
springs  of  moral  life  and  character  ;  to  teachers  in  the 
Sunday  school,  successors  to  the  work  that  Christ 
assigned  to  Peter,  of  shepherding  His  lambs.  These 
instructors  supply  the  Lord's  nurture  to  multitudes  of 
children,  in  whose  homes  Christian  faith  and  example 


vi.  1-9.]  THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD.  387 

are  wanting.  The  ideas  which  children  form  of  Christ 
and  His  religion,  are  gathered  from  what  they  see  and 
hear  in  the  school.  Many  a  child  receives  its  bias  for 
life  from  the  influence  of  the  teacher  before  whom  it 
sits  on  Sunday.  The  love  and  meekness  of  wisdom,  or 
the  coldness  or  carelessness  of  the  one  who  thus  stands 
between  Christ  and  the  infant  soul,  will  make  or  mar 
its  spiritual  future. 

II.  From  the  children  of  the  house  the  apostle  pro- 
ceeds to  address  the  servants — slaves  as  they  were, 
until  the  gospel  unbound  their  chains.  The  juxtaposi- 
tion of  children  and  slaves  is  full  of  significance ;  it  is 
a  tacit  prophecy  of  emancipation.  It  brings  the  slave 
within  the  household,  and  gives  a  new  dignity  to 
domestic  service.* 

The  Greek  philosophers  regarded  slavery  as  a  funda- 
mental institution,  indispensable  to  the  existence  of 
civilized  society.  That  the  few  might  enjoy  freedom 
and  culture,  the  many  were  doomed  to  bondage. 
Aristotle  defines  the  slave  as  an  "  animated  tool,"  and 
the  tool  as  an  ''inanimate  slave."  Two  or  three  facts 
will  suffice  to  show  how  utterly  slaves  were  deprived 
of  human  rights  in  the  brilliant  times  of  the  classic 
humanism.  In  Athens  it  was  the  legal  rule  to  admit 
the  evidence  of  a  slave  only  upon  torture,  as  that  of  a 
freeman  was  received  upon  oath.  ■  Amongst  the  Romans, 
if  a  master  had  been  murdered  in  his  house,  the  whole 
of  his  domestic  servants,"  amounting  sometimes  to 
hundreds,  were  put  to  death  without  inquiry.  It  was 
a  common  mark  of  hospitality  to  assign  to  a  guest  a 
female  slave  for  the  night,  like  any  other  convenience. 

*  The  V70xdi  family  {'Lz.im  familia)  denoted  originally  the  servants  of 
the  establishment,  the  domestic  slaves.  Its  modern  usage  is  an  index 
to  the  elevating  influence  of  Chiistianity  upon  social  relations. 


388  THE  EPISTLE    TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  slave  population  out- 
numbered the  free  citizens  of  the  Roman  and  Greek  cities 
by  many  times;  that  they  were  frequently  of  the  same 
race,  and  might  be  even  superior  in  education  to  their 
masters.  Indeed,  it  was  a  lucrative  trade  to  rear  young 
slaves  and  train  them  in  literary  and  other  accomplish- 
ments, and  then  to  let  them  out  in  these  capacities  for 
hire.  Let  any  one  consider  the  condition  of  society 
which  all  this  involved,  and  he  will  have  some  concep- 
tion of  the  degradation  in  which  the  masses  of  mankind 
were  plunged,  and  of  the  crushing  tyranny  that  the 
world  laboured  under  in  the  boasted  days  of  republican 
liberty  and  Hellenic  art. 

No  wonder  that  the  new  religion  was  welcome  to 
the  slaves  of  the  Pagan  cities,  and  that  they  flocked  into 
the  Church.  Welcome  to  them  was  the  voice  that 
said  :  ''  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  are  burdened  and 
heavy  laden "  ;  welcome  the  proclamation  that  made 
them  Christ's  freedmen,  ''brethren  beloved"  where 
they  had  been  ''animated  tools"  (Philem.  i6).  In  the 
light  of  such  teaching,  slavery  was  doomed.  Its  re- 
adoption  by  Christian  nations,  and  the  imposition  of 
its  yoke  on  the  negro  race,  is  amongst  the  great  crimes 
of  history, — a  crime  for  which  the  white  man  has  had 
to  pay  rivers  of  his  blood. 

The  social  fabric,  as  it  then  existed,  was  so  entirely 
based  upon  slavery,  that  for  Christ  and  the  apostles  to 
have  proclaimed  its  abolition  would  have  meant  uni- 
versal anarchy.  In  writing  to  Philemon  about  his 
converted  slave  Onesimus,  the  apostle  does  not  say, 
''  Release  him,"  though  the  word  seems  to  be  trembling 
on  his  lips.  In  i  Corinthians  vii.  20-24  he  even  advises 
the  slave  who  has  the  chance  of  manumission  to  remain 
where  he  is,  content   to   be    "the  Lord's    freedman." 


vi.  1-9.]  THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD.  389 

To  the  Christian  slave  what  mattered  it  who  ruled  over 
his  perishing  body  !  his  spirit  was  free,  death  would 
be  his  discharge  and  enfranchisement.  No  decree  is 
issued  to  abolish  bond-service  between  man  and  man  ; 
but  it  was  destroyed  in  its  essence  by  the  spirit  of 
Christian  brotherhood.  It  melted  away  in  the  spread 
of  the  gospel,  as  snow  and  winter  melt  before  the  face 
of  spring. 

"  Ye  slaves,  obey  your  lords  according  to  the  flesh." 
The  apostle  does  not  disguise  the  slave's  subservience ; 
nor  does  he  speak  in  the  language  of  pity  or  of  con- 
descension. He  appeals  as  a  man  to  men  and  equals, 
on  the  ground  of  a  common  faith  and  service  to  Christ. 
He  awakens  in  these  degraded  tools  of  society  the 
sense  of  spiritual  manhood,  of  conscience  and  loyalty, 
of  love  and  faith  and  hope.  As  in  Colossians  iii.  22 
— iv.  I,  the  apostle  designates  the  earthly  master  not 
by  his  common  title  (despotes\  but  by  the  very  word 
{kyrios)  that  is  the  title  of  the  Lord  Christ,  giving  the 
slave  in  this  way  to  understand  that  he  has,  in  common 
with  his  master  (ver.  9),  a  higher  Lord  in  the  spirit. 
"  Ye  are  slaves  to  the  Lord  Christ ! "  (Col.  iii.  24).  St 
Paul  is  accustomed  to  call  himself  "  a  slave  of  Christ 
Jesus."  *  Nay,  it  is  even  said,  in  Philippians  ii.  7,  that 
Christ  Jesus  ''took  the  form  of  a  slave  !" 

How  much  there  was,  then,  to  console  the  Chris- 
tian bondman  for  his  lot.  In  self-abnegation,  in  the 
willing  forfeiture  of  personal  rights,  in  his  menial  and 
unrequited  tasks,  in  submission  to  insult  and  injustice, 
he  found  a  holy  joy.  His  was  a  path  in  which  he 
might  closely  follow  the  steps  of  the  great  Servant 
of  mankind.  His  position  enabled  him  to  ''  adorn  the 
Saviour's  doctrine"  above  other  men  (Tit.  ii.  9,   10). 

*  Rom.  i.  I  ;  2  Cor.  iv.  5 ;  Gal.  i.  10,  etc. 


390  THE  EPISTLE  TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Affectionate,  gentle,  bearing  injury  with  joyful  courage, 
the  Christian  slave  held  up  to  that  hardened  and 
jaded  Pagan  age  the  example  which  it  most  required. 
God  chose  the  base  things  of  the  world  to  bring  to 
nought  the  mighty. 

The  relations  of  servant  and  master  will  endure,  in 
one  shape  or  other,  while  the  world  stands.  And  the 
apostle's  injunctions  bear  upon  servants  of  every  order. 
We  are  all,  in  our  various  capacities,  servants  of  the 
community.  The  moral  worth  of  our  service  and  its 
blessing  to  ourselves  depend  on  the  conditions  that  are 
here  laid  down. 

1.  There  must  be  a  genuine  care  for  our  work. 

"  Obey,"  he  says,  ^'  with  fear  and  trembling,  in 
singleness  of  your  heart,  as  unto  the  Christ."  The 
fear  enjoined  is  no  dread  of  human  displeasure,  of  the 
master's  whip  or  tongue.  It  is  the  same  "  fear  and 
trembling  "  with  which  we  are  bidden  to  "  work  out 
our  ovvn  salvation"  (Phil.  ii.  12).  The  inward  work  of 
the  soul's  salvation  and  the  outward  work  of  the  busy 
hands  labouring  in  the  mine  or  at  the  loom,  or  in  the 
lowliest  domestic  duties, — all  alike  are  to  be  performed 
under  a  solemn  responsibility  to  God  and  in  the  presence 
of  Christ,  the  Lord  of  nature  and  of  men,  who  under- 
stands every  sort  of  work,  and  will  render  to  each  of 
His  servants  a  just  and  exact  reward.  No  man, 
whether  he  be  minister  of  state  or  stable-groom,  will 
dare  to  do  heedless  work,  who  lives  and  acts  in  that 
august  Presence, — 

"As  ever  in  the  great  Task-master's  eye." 

2.  The  sense  of  Christ's  Lordship  ensures  honesty 
in  work. 


vi.  1-9.]  THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD.  391 

So  the  apostle  continues  :  ''  Not  with  eye-service,  as 
rnen-pleasers!'  Both  these  are  rare  compound  words, 
— the  former  indeed  occurring  only  here  and  in  the 
companion  letter,  being  coined,  probably,  by  the  writer 
for  this  use.  It  is  the  common  fault  and  temptation 
of  servants  in  all  degrees  to  observe  the  master's  eye, 
and  to  work  busily  or  slackly  as  they  are  watched  or 
not.  Such  workmen  act  as  they  do,  because  they  look 
to  men  and  not  to  God.  Their  work  is  without  con- 
science and  self-respect.  The  visible  master  says 
"  Well  done  ! "  But  there  is  another  Master  looking 
on,  who  says  ''  111  done !  "  to  all  pretentious  doings 
and  works  of  eye-service, — who  sees  not  as  man  sees, 
but  judges  with  the  act  the  motive  and  intent. 

"Not  on  the  vulgar  mass 
Called  '  work '  must  sentence  pass, 
Things  done,  which  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price." 

In  His  book  of  accounts  there  is  a  stern  reckoning  in 
store  for  deceitful  dealers  and  the  makers-up  of  unsound 
goods,  in  whatever  handicraft  or  headcraft  they  are 
engaged. 

Let  us  all  adopt  St  Paul's  maxim;  it  will  be  an 
immense  economy.  What  armies  of  overlookers  and 
inspectors  we  shall  be  able  to  dismiss,  when  every 
servant  works  as  well  behind  his  master's  back  as  to 
his  face,  when  every  manufacturer  and  shopkeeper  puts 
himself  in  the  purchaser's  place  and  deals  as  he  would 
have  others  deal  with  him.  It  was  for  the  Christian 
slaves  of  the  Greek  trading  cities  to  rebuke  the  Greek 
spirit  of  fraud  and  trickery,  by  which  the  common 
dealings  of  life  in  all  directions  were  vitiated. 

3.  To  the  carefulness  and  honesty  of  the  slave's 
daily  labour  he  must  even  add  heartiness :  ^'  as  slaves 


392  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  Christ  doing  the  will  of  God  from  the  soul,  with 
good  will  doing  service,  as  to  the  Lord  and  not  to 
men." 

They  must  do  the  will  of  God  in  the  service  of  men, 
as  Jesus  Christ  Himself  did  it, — and  with  His  meek- 
ness and  fortitude  and  unwearied  love.  Their  work 
will  thus  be  rendered  from  inner  principle,  with  thought 
and  affection  and  resolution  spent  upon  it.  That  alone 
is  the  work  of  a  man,  whether  he  preaches  or  ploughs, 
which  comes  from  the  soul  behind  the  hands  and  the 
tongue,  into  which  the  workman  puts  as  much  of  his 
soul,  of  himself,  as  the  work  is  capable  of  holding. 

4.  Add  to  all  this,  the  servant's  anticipation  of  the 
final  reward.  In  each  case,  "  whatsoever  one  may  do 
that  is  good,  this  he  will  receive  from  the  Lord,  whether 
he  be  a  bondman  or  a  freeman."  The  complementary 
truth  is  given  in  the  Colossian  letter :  "  He  who  does 
wrong,  will  receive  back  the  wrong  that  he  did." 

The  doctrine  of  equal  retribution  at  the  judgement- 
seat  of  Christ  matches  that  of  equal  salvation  at  the 
cross  of  Christ.  How  trifling  and  evanescent  the  dif- 
ferences of  earthly  rank  appear,  in  view  of  these  sub- 
lime realities.  There  is  a  ^'Lord  in  heaven,"  alike  for 
servant  and  for  master,  "with  whom  is  no  respect  of 
persons"  (ver.  9).  This  grand  conviction  beats  down 
all  caste-pride.  It  teaches  justice  to  the  mighty  and 
the  proud ;  it  exalts  the  humble,  and  assures  the 
down-trodden  of  redress.  No  bribery  or  privilege,  no 
sophistry  or  legal  cunning  will  avail,  no  concealment 
or  distortion  of  the  facts  will  be  possible  in  that  Court 
of  final  appeal.  The  servant  and  the  master,  the 
monarch  and  his  meanest  subject  will  stand  before 
the  bar  of  Jesus  Christ  upon  the  same  footing.  And 
the  poor  slave,   wonderful   lo   think,  who  was  faithful 


vi.  1-9.]  THE   CHRISTIAN  HOUSEHOLD.  393 

in  the  "  few  things  "  of  his  drudging  earthly  lot,  will 
receive  the  "many  things"  of  a  son  of  God  and  a 
joint-heir  with  Christ ! 

"  Andf  ye  lords,  do  the  same  things  towards  them  " — 
be  as  good  to  your  slaves  as  they  are  required  to  be 
towards  you.  A  bold  application  this  of  Christ's  great 
rule :  *'  What  you  would  that  men  should  do  to  you, 
do  even  so  to  them."  In  many  instances  this  rule 
suggested  liberation,  where  the  slave  was  prepared  for 
freedom.  In  any  case,  the  master  is  to  put  himself 
in  his  dependant's  place,  and  to  act  by  him  as  he 
would  desire  himself  to  be  treated  if  their  positions 
were  reversed. 

Slaves  were  held  to  be  scarcely  human.  Deceit  and 
sensuality  were  regarded  as  their  chief  characteristics. 
They  must  be  ruled,  the  moralists  said,  by  the  fear  of 
punishment.  This  was  the  only  way  to  keep  them  in 
their  place.  The  Christian  master  adopts  a  different 
poUcy.  He  ''  desists  from  threatening  "  ;  he  treats  his 
servants  with  even-handed  justice,  with  fit  courtesy 
and  consideration.  The  recollection  is  ever  present  to 
his  mind,  that  he  must  give  account  of  his  charge  over 
each  one  of  them  to  his  Lord  and  theirs.  So  he  will 
make,  as  far  as  in  him  lies,  his  own  domain  an  image 
of  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 


ON  THE  APPROACHING  CONFLICT. 

Chapter  vi.  10-20. 


395 


'I5oi>  6  ^aravas  i^rjTr]<TaTO  vfids,  rod  (nviiaaL  ws  tov  (xXtov. 

Luke  xxii.  31. 


396 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE  FOES  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

'•  From  henceforth  be  strong  in  the  Lord,  and  in  the  might  of  His 
strength.  Put  on  the  whole  armour  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able  to 
stand  against  the  wiles  of  the  devil.  For  our  wrestling  is  not  against 
flesh  and  blood,  but  against  the  principalities,  against  the  powers,  against 
the  world-mlers  of  this  darkness,  against  the  spiritual  /ws/s  of  wicked- 
ness, in  the  heavenly  places." — Eph.  vi.  10-12, 

WE  follow  the  Revised  reading  of  the  opening 
word  of  this  paragraph,  and  the  preferable 
rendering  given  by  the  Revisers  in  their  margin.  The 
adverb  is  the  same  that  is  found  in  Galatians  vi.  17 
{^^ Henceforth  let  no  man  trouble  me");  not  that  used 
in  Philippians  iii.  i  and  elsewhere  C  jF/';/<7//y,  my 
brethren,"  etc.).  The  copyists  have  conformed  our 
text,  seemingly,  to  the  latter  passage.  We  are  recalled 
to  the  circumstances  and  occasion  of  the  epistle.  High 
as  St  Paul  soars  in  meditation,  he  does  not  forget  the 
situation  of  his  readers.  The  vi^ords  of  chapter  iv.  14 
showed  us  how  well  aware  he  is  of  the  dangers  loom- 
ing before  the  Asian  Churches. 

The  epistle  to  the  Colossians  is  altogether  a  letter  of 
conflict  (see  ch.  ii.  i  ff.).  In  writing  that  letter  St  Paul 
was  wrestling  with  spiritual  powers,  mighty  for  evil, 
which  had  commenced  their  attack  upon  this  outlying 
post  of  the  Ephesian  province.  He  sees  in  the  sky 
the  cloud  portending  a  desolating  storm.     The  clash  of 

397 


398  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


hostile  arms  is  heard  approaching.  This  is  no  time  for 
sloth  or  fear,  for  a  faith  half-hearted  or  half-equipped. 
''  You  have  need  of  your  best  manhood  and  of  all  the 
weapons  of  the  spiritual  armoury,  to  hold  your  ground 
in  the  conflict  that  is  coming  upon  you.  Henceforth 
be  strong  in  the  Lord,  and  in  the  might  of  His  strength." 

It  is  the  apostle's  call  to  arms  ! — "  Be  strengthened 
in  the  Lord,"  he  says  (to  render  the  imperative  literally  : 
so  in  2  Timothy  ii.  i).  Make  His  strength  your  own. 
The  strength  he  bids  them  assume  is  power,  ability, 
strength  adequate  to  its  end.*  ''The  might  of  His 
strength  "  repeats  the  combination  of  terms  we  found 
in  chapter  i.  19.  That  sovereign  power  of  the  Almighty 
which  raised  Jesus  our  Lord  from  the  dead,  belongs  to 
the  Lord  Christ  Himself.  From  its  resources  He  will 
clothe  and  arm  His  people.  ''  In  the  Lord,"  says 
Israel  evermore,  "  is  righteousness  and  strength.  The 
rock  of  my  salvation  and  my  refuge  is  in  God."  The 
Church's  strength  lies  in  the  almightiness  of  her  risen 
Lord,  the  Captain  of  her  warfare. 

''The  panoply  oi  God"  (ver.  11)  reminds  us  of  the 
saying  of  Jesus  in  reference  to  His  casting  out  of 
demons,  recorded  in  Luke  xi.  21,  22 — the  only  other 
instance  in  the  New  Testament  of  this  somewhat  rare 
Greek  word.  The  Lord  Jesus  describes  Himself  in 
conflict  with  Satan,  who  as  "  the  strong  one  armed 
keeps  his  possessions  in  peace," — until  there  "come 
upon  him  the  stronger  than  he,"  who  "  conquers  him 
and  takes  away  his  panoply  wherein  he  trusted,  and 
divides  his  spoils."     In   this  text  the  situation  is  re- 

*  'Ej/Suya/ioOcr^e  [from  Si/va/xis]  iv  l^vpio}  kuI  iv  r^j  Kparec  ttjs  lax^os 
avTov.  See  the  note  on  these  synonyms,  on  p,  76.  Comp.,  for  this  verb, 
Col.  i.  II  ;  2  Tim.  iv.  17  ;  Phil.  iv.  13  :  Udvra  ia-xvio  iv  rt^  hdvpafx-ouvrt 
fjie, — "  I  have  strength  for  eveiything  in  Him  that  enables  me." 


vi.  10-12.]  THE  FOES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  399 

versed ;  and  the  "  full  armour "  belongs  to  Christ's 
servants,  who  are  equipped  to  meet  the  counter-attack 
of  Satan  and  the  powers  of  evil.  There  is  a  Divine 
and  a  Satanic  panoply — arms  tempered  in  heaven  and 
in  hell,  to  be  wielded  by  the  sons  of  light  and  of  dark- 
ness respectively  (comp.  Rom.  xiii.  12).  The  weapons 
of  warfare  on  the  two  sides  are  even  as  the  two  leaders 
that  furnish  them — "  the  strong  one  armed  "  and  the 
*'  Stronger  than  he."  Mightier  are  faith  and  love  than 
unbehef  and  hate ;  '^  greater  is  He  that  is  in  you  than 
he  that  is  in  the  world." 

Let  us  review  the  forces  marshalled  against  us, — their 
nature y  their  mode  of  assault ^  and  the  arena  of  the  contest. 
I.  The  Asian  Christians  had  to  "  stand  against  the 
wiles  [schemes,  or  methods  *]  of  the  devils 

Unquestionably,  the  New  Testament  assumes  the 
personality  of  Satan.  This  belief  runs  counter  to 
modern  thought,  governed  as  it  is  by  the  tendency  to 
depersonalize  existence.  The  conception  of  evil  spirits 
given  us  in  the  Bible  is  treated  as  an  obsolete  supersti- 
tion ;  and  the  name  of  the  Evil  One  with  multitudes 
serves  only  to  point  a  profane  or  careless  jest.  To 
Jesus  Christ,  it  is  very  certain,  Satan  was  no  figure 
of  speech ;  but  a  thinking  and  active  being,  of  whose 
presence  and  influence  He  saw  tokens  everywhere  in 
this  evil  world  (comp.  ii.  2).  If  the  Lord  Jesus  ''  speaks 
what  He  knows,  and  testifies  what  He  has  seen  "  con- 
cerning the  mysteries  of  the  other  world,  there  can  be 
no  question  of  the  existence  of  a  personal  devil.  If  in 
any  matter  He  was  bound,  as  a  teacher  of  spiritual 
truth,  to  disavow  Jewish  superstition,  surely  Christ  was 
so  bound  in  this  matter.  Yet  instead  of  repudiating 
the  current  belief  in  Satan  and  the  demons.  He  ear- 

*   Comp.  remark  on  fMedodeia  (iv.  14),  p.  247. 


) 


40O  /'       THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


nestly  accepts  it ;  and  it  entered  into  His  own  deepest 
experiences.  In  the  visible  forms  of  sin  Jesus  saw 
the  shadow  of  His  great  antagonist.  "  From  the  Evil 
One  "  He  taught  His  disciples  to  pray  that  they  might 
be  delivered.  The  victims  of  disease  and  madness 
whom  He  healed,  were  so  many  captives  rescued  from 
the  malignant  power  of  Satan.  And  when  Jesus  went 
to  meet  His  death,  He  viewed  it  as  the  supreme  conflict 
with  the  usurper  and  oppressor  who  claimed  to  be  "  the 
prince  of  this  world."  " 

Satan  is  the  consummate  form  of  depraved  and 
untruthful  intellect.  We  read  of  his  "  thoughts,"  his 
'^  schemes,"  his  subtlety  and  deceit  and  impostures  ;  f 
of  his  slanders  against  God  and  man, J  from  which, 
indeed,  the  name  devil  (diabolus)  is  given  him.  False- 
hood and  hatred  are  his  chief  quahties.  Hence  Jesus 
called  him  "the  manslayer"  and  "  the  father  of  false- 
hood "  (John  viii.  44).  He  was  the  first  sinner,  and  the 
fountain  of  sin  (i  John  iii.  8).  All  who  do  unright- 
eousness or  hate  their  brethren  are,  so  far,  his  off- 
spring (i  John  iii.  10).  With  a  realm  so  wide,  Satan 
might  well  be  called  not  only  "  the  prince,"  but  the  very 
"god  of  this  world"  (2  Cor.  iv.  4).  Plausibly  he  said 
to  Jesus,  in  showing  Him  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  at 
the  time  when  Tiberius  Caesar  occupied  the  imperial 
throne:  "All  this  authority  and  glory  are  delivered 
unto  me.  To  whomsoever  I  will,  I  give  it."  His  power 
is  exercised  with  an  intelligence  perhaps  as  great  as 
any  can  be  that  is  morally  corrupt ;  but  it  is  limited 
on  all  sides.  In  dealing  with  Jesus  Christ  he  showed 
conspicuous  ignorance. 

*  John  xii.  31,  xiv.  30,  xvi.  11  :   conip.  Luke  iv.  5-7  ;  Heb.  ii.  14. 
t  2  Cor.  ii.  II,  xi.  3;  2  Thess.  ii.  9,  10;  2  Tim.  ii.  26,  etc. 
X  Rev.  xii.  7-10;  Gen.  iii.  4,  5;  Zech.  iii.  I ;  Job  i. 


VI.  I0-I2.J  THE  FOES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  401 

Chief  amongst  the  wiles  of  the  devil  at  this  time  was 
the  ''scheme  of  error,"  the  cunningly  woven  net  of  the 
Gnostical  delusion,  in  which  the  apostle  feared  that  the 
Asian  Churches  would  be  entangled.  Satan's  empire 
is  ruled  with  a  settled  policy,  and  his  warfare  carried 
on  with  a  system  of  strategy  which  takes  advantage  of 
every  opening  for  attack.*  The  manifold  combinations 
of  error,  the  various  arts  of  seduction  and  temptation, 
the  ten  thousand  forms  of  the  deceit  of  unrighteousness 
constitute  ''  the  wiles  of  the  devil." 

Such  is  the  gigantic  opponent  with  whom  Christ  and 
the  Church  have  been  in  conflict  through  all  ages.     But 
Satan  does  not  stand  alone.     In  verse  12  there  is  called 
up  before  us  an  imposing  array  of  spiritual  powers. 
They  are  "  the  angels  of  the  devil,"  whom  Jesus  set 
in  contrast  with  the  angels  of  God  that  surround  and 
serve  the  Son  of  man  (Matt.  xxv.  41).     These  unhappy 
beings  are,  again,  identified  with    the   ''demons,"   or 
'* unclean   spirits,"   having    Satan    for  their    "prince," 
whom   our   Lord   expelled  wherever    He  found   them 
infesting  the  bodies  of  men.j     They  are  represented 
in  the  New  Testament  as  fallen  beings,  expelled  from 
a  "  principaHty  "  and  "  habitation  of  their  own  "  (Jude  6) 
which  they  once  enjoyed,  and  reserved  for  the  dreadful 
punishment  which  Christ  calls  "  the  eternal  fire  pre- 
pared for  the  devil  and  his  angels."     They  are  here 
entitled  principalities  and  powers  (or  dominions),  after 
the  same  style  as  the  angels  of  God,  to  whose  ranks, 
as  we  are  almost  compelled  to  suppose,  these  apostates 
once  belonged. 

In  contrast  with  the  "  angels  of  light "  (2  Cor.  xi.  14) 
and  "  ministering  spirits  "  of  the  kingdom  of  God  (Heb. 

*  Ch.  iv.  27  ;  2  Cor.  ii.  ii  ;  Luke  xxii,  31.  . 
t  Luke  X.  17-20,  xi.  14-26. 

26 


402  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

i.  14),  the  angels  of_Sa.tan_have  constituted  themselves 
tJuworld-rulers  of  this  darkness.  We  find  the  compound 
expression  co5mo-^r«/or  (world-ruler)  in  later  rabbinical 
usage,  borrowed  from  the  Greek  and  applied  to  "the 
angel  of  death/'  before  whom  all  mortal  things  must 
bow.  Possibly,  St  Paul  brought  the  term  with  him 
from  the  school  of  Gamaliel.  Satan  being  the  god  of 
this  world  and  swaying  "  the  dominion  of  darkness,"  * 
according  to  the  same  vocabulary  his  angels  are  "  the 
rulers  of  the  world's  darkness  "  ;  -and  the  provinces  of 
the  empire  of  evil  fall  under  their  direction. 

The  darkness  surrounding  the  apostle  in  Rome  and 
the  Churches  in  Asia — ''  this  darkness,"  he  says — was 
dense  and  foul.  With  Nero  and  his  satellites  the 
masters  of  empire,  the  world  seemed  to  be  ruled  by 
demons  rather  than  by  men.  The  frightful  wish  of  one 
of  the  Psalmists  was  fulfilled  for  the  heathen  world : 
*'  Set  a  wicked  man  over  him,  and  let  Satan  stand  at 
his  right  hand." 

The  last  of  St  Paul's  synonyms  for  the  satanjc  forces, 
''  the  spiritual  [powers]  of  wickedness,"  may  have 
served  to  warn  the  Church  against  reading  a  political 
sense  into  the  passage  and  regarding  the  civil  constitu- 
tion of  society  and  the  visible  world-rulers  as  objects 
for  their  hatred.  Pilate  was  a  specimen,  by  no  means 
amongst  the  worst,  of  the  men  in  .power.  Jesus 
regarded  him  with  pity.  His  real  antagonist  lurked 
behind  these  human  instruments.  The  above  phrase, 
"spirituals  of  wickedness,"  is  Hebraistic,  like  "judge" 
and  "  steward  of  unrighteousness,"  f  and  is  equivalent 
to  "wicked  spirits."  The  adjective  "spiritual,"  which 
does  duty  for  a  substantive — "  the  spiritual  [forces,  or 

*  Col.  i.  13  :  comp.- Acts  xxvi.  18,  etc. 
f  Luke  xvi.  8,  xviii.  6. 


vi.  10-12.]  THE  FOES   OF  THE   CHURCH.  403 

elements]  of  wickedness"* — brings  out  the   collective 
character  of  these  hostile  powers. 

St  Paul's  demonology  t  is  identical  with  that  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  two  doctrines  stand  or  fall  together.  The 
advent  of  Christ  appears  to  have  stirred  to  extraordinary 
activity  the  satanic  powers.  They  asserted  them- 
selves in  Palestine  at  this  particular  time  in  the  most 
open  and  terrifying  manner.  In  an  age  of  scepticism 
and  science  like  our  own,  it  belongs  to  ^'  the  wiles  of 
the  devil"  to  work  obscurely.  This  is  dictated  by 
obvious  policy.  Moreover,  his  power  is  greatly  reduced. 
Satan  is  no  longer  the  god  of  this  world,  since  Chris- 
tianity rose  to  its  ascendant.  The  manifestations  of 
demonism  are,  at  least  in  Christian  lands,  vastly  less 
conspicuous  than  in  the  first  age  of  the  Church.  But 
those  are  more  bold  than  wise  who  deny  their  existence, 
and  who  profess  to  explain  all  occult  phenomena  and 
phrenetic  moral  aberrations  by  physical  causes.  The 
popular  idolatries  of  his  own  day,  with  their  horrible 
rites  and  inhuman  orgies,  St  Paul  ascribed  to  devilry. 
He  declared  that  those  who  sat  at  the  feast  of  the  idol 
and  gave  sanction  to  its  worship,  were  partaking  of 
*'  the  cup  and  the  table  of  demons"  (i  Cor.  x.  20,  21). 

*  Ta  irvevfiaTLKa  r^j  Toutjpias. 

t  Mr.  Moule  aptly  observes,  in  his  excellent  and  most  useful  Com- 
mentary on  Ephesians  in  the  Cambridge  Bible  for  Schools  and  Colleges  : 
St  Paul's  "testimony  to  the  real  and  objective  existence"  of  evil  spirits 
*'  gains  in  strength  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  epistle  was  addressed 
(at  least,  among  other  designations)  to  Ephesus,  and  that  Ephesus  (see 
Acts  xix.)  was  a  peculiarly  active  scene  of  asserted  magical  and  other 
dealings  with  the  unseen  darkness.  Supposing  that  the  right  line  to 
take  in  dealing  with  such  beliefs  and  practices  had  been  to  say  that  the 
whole  basis  of  them  was  a  fiction  of  the  human  mind,  not  only  would 
such  a  verse  as  this  [vi.  12]  not  have  been  written,  but,  we  may  well 
assume,  something  would  have  been  written  strongly  contradictory  to 
tlie  thought  of  it"  (p.  176). 


404  THE  EPISTLE  TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

Heathen  idolatries  at  the  present  time  are,  in  many 
instances,  equally  diabolical  ;  and  those  who  witness 
them  cannot  easily  doubt  the  truth  of  the  representa- 
tions of  Scripture  upon  this  subject. 

II.  The  conflict  against  these  spiritual  enemies  is 
essentially  a  spiritual  conflict.  ''  Our  struggle  is  not 
against  blood  and  flesh." 

They  are  not  human  antagonists  whom  the  Church 
has  to  fear, — mortal  men  whom  we  can  look  in  the  face 
and  meet  with  equal  courage,  in  the  contest  where  hot 
blood  and  straining  muscle  do  their  part.  The  fight 
needs  mettle  of  another  kind.  The  foes  of  our  faith  are 
untouched  by  carnal  weapons.  They  come  upon  us 
without  sound  or  footfall.  They  assail  the  will  and 
conscience ;  they  follow  us  into  the  regions  of  spiritual 
thought,  of  prayer  and  meditation.  Hence  the  weapons 
of  our  warfare,  like  those  which  the  apostle  wielded 
(2  Cor.  X.  2-5),  **  are  not  carnal,"  but  spiritual  and 
*'  mighty  toward  God." 

It  is  true  that  the  Asian  Churches  had  visible  enemies 
arrayed  against  them.  There  were  the  ^'  wild  beasts  " 
with  whom  St  Paul  "  fought  at  Ephesus,"  the  heathen 
mob  of  the  city,  sworn  foes  of  every  despiser  of  their 
great  goddess  Artemis.  There  was  Alexander  the 
coppersmith,  ready  to  do  the  apostle  evil,  and  ''  the 
Jews  from  Asia,"  a  party  of  whom  all  but  murdered 
him  in  Jerusalem  (Acts  xxi.  27-36) ;  there  was  Deme- 
trius the  silversmith,  instigator  of  the  tumult  which 
drove  him  from  Ephesus,  and  ''the  craftsmen  of  like 
occupation,"  whose  trade  was  damaged  by  the  progress 
of  the  new  religion.  These  were  formidable  opponents, 
strong  in  everything  that  brings  terror  to  flesh  and 
blood.  But  after  all,  these  were  of  small  account  in 
St    Paul's  view;   and   the  Church   need   never  dread 


vi.  10-12.]  THE  FOES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  405 

material  antagonism.  The  centre  of  the  struggle  hes 
elsewhere.  The  apostle  looks  beyond  the  ranks  of  his 
earthly  foes  to  the  power  of  Satan  by  which  they  are 
animated  and  directed, — "impotent  pieces  of  the  game 
he  plays."  From  this  hidden  region  he  sees  impending 
an  attack  more  perilous  than  all  the  violence  of  perse- 
cution, a  conflict  urged  with  weapons  of  finer  proof 
than  the  sharp  steel  of  sword  and  axe,  and  with  darts 
tipped  with  a  fiercer  fire  than  that  which  burns  the 
flesh  or  devours  the  goods. 

Even  in  outward  struggles  against  worldly  power, 
our  wrestling  is  not  simply  against  blood  and  flesh. 
Calvin  makes  a  bold  application  of  the  passage  when 
he  says  :  "  This  sentence  we  should  remember  so  often 
as  we  are  tempted  to  revengefulness,  under  the  smart 
of  injuries  from  men.  For  when  nature  prompts  us 
to  fling  ourselves  upon  them  with  all  our  might,  this 
unreasonable  passion  will  be  checked  and  reined  in 
suddenly,  when  we  consider  that  these  men  who  trouble 
us  are  nothing  more  than  darts  cast  by  the  hand  of 
Satan  ;  and  that  while  we  stoop  to  pick  up  these,  we 
shall  expose  ourselves  to  the  full  force  of  his  blows." 
Vasa  sunt,  says  Augustine  of  human  troublers,  alius  \ 
utitur;  organa  sunt,  alius  tangit. 

The  crucial  assaults  of  evil,  in  many  instances,  come 
in  no  outward  and  palpable  guise.  There  are  sinister 
influences  that  affect  the  spirit  more  directly,  fires  that 
search  its  inmost  fibres,  a  darkness  that  sweeps  down 
upon  the  very  light  that  is  in  us  threatening  its  extinc- 
tion. '^Doubts,  the  spectres  of  the  mind,"  haunt  it; 
clouds  brood  over  the  interior  sky  and  fierce  storms 
sweep  down  on  the  soul,  that  rise  from  beyond  the  . 
seen  horizon.  ''  Jesus  was  led  of  the  Spirit  into  the  J 
wilderness,  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil."     Away  from 


4o6  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

the  tracks  of  men  and  the  seductions  of  flesh  and  blood 
the  choicest  spirits  have  been  tested  and  schooled.  So 
they  are  tempered  in  the  spiritual  furnace  to  a  fineness 
which  turns  the  edge  of  the  sharpest  weapons  the  world 
may  use  against  them. 

Some  men  are  constitutionally  more  exposed  than 
others  to  these  interior  assaults.  There  are  conditions 
of  the  brain  and  nerves,  tendencies  lying  deep  in  the 
organism,  that  give  points  of  vantage  to  the  enemy  of 
souls.  These  are  the  opportunities  of  the  tempter; 
they  do  not  constitute  the  temptation  itself,  which 
comes  from  a  hidden  and  objective  source.  Similarly 
in  the  trials  of  the  Church,  in  the  great  assaults  made 
upon  her  vital  truths,  historical  conditions  and  the 
external  movements  of  the  age  furnish  the  material 
for  the  conflicts  through  which  it  has  to  pass ;  but 
the  spring  and  moving  agent,  the  master  will  that 
dominates  these  hostile  forces  is  that  of  Satan. 

The  Church  was  engaged  in  a  double  conflict — of 
the  flesh  and  of  the  spirit.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was 
assailed  by  the  material  seductions  of  heathenism  and 
the  terrors  of  ruthless  persecution.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  underwent  a  severe  intellectual  conflict  with  the 
systems  of  error  that  were  rooted  in  the  mind  of  the 
^  age.  These  forces  opposed  the  Christian  truth  from 
'  without ;  but  they  became  much  more  dangerous  when 
they  found  their  way  within  the  Church,  vitiating  her 
teaching  and  practice,  and  growing  like  tares  among 
the  wheat.  It  is  of  heresy  more  than  persecution  that 
the  apostle  is  thinking,  when  he  writes  these  ominous 
i  words.  Not  blood  and  flesh,  but  the  mind  and  spirit 
of  the  Asian  believers  will  bear  the  brunt  of  the  attack 
that  the  craft  of  the  devil  is  preparing  for  the  apostolic 
Church. 


vi.  10-12.]  THE  FOES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  407 


III.  The  last  clause  of  verse  12,  in  the  heavenly  places^ 
refuses  to  combine  with  the  above  description  of  the 
powers  hostile  to  the  Church.  The  heavenly  places  are 
the  abode  of  God  and  the  blessed  angels.  This  is  the 
region  where  the  Father  has  blessed  us  in  Christ  (i.  3)  ; 
where  He  seated  the  Christ  at  His  own  right  hand 
(i.  20),  and  has  in  some  sense  seated  us  with  Christ 
(ii.  6)  ;  and  where  the  angelic  princedoms  dwell  who 
follow  with  keen  and  studious  sympathy  the  Church's 
fortunes  (iii.  10).  To  locate  the  devil  and  his  angels 
there  seems  to  us  highly  incongruous  ;  the  juxtaposition 
is  out  of  the  question  with  St  Paul.  Chapter  ii.  2  gives 
no  real  support  to  this  view  :  supposing  "  the  air  "  to 
be  literally  intended  in  that  passage,  it  belongs  to  earth 
and  not  to  heaven.*  Nor  do  the  parallels  from  other 
Scriptures  adduced  supply  any  but  the  most  precarious 
basis  for  an  interpretation  against  which  the  use  of  the 
exalted  phrase  in  our  epistle  revolts. 

No  ;  Satan  and  his  hosts  do  not  dwell  with  Christ 
and  the  holy  angels  "  in  the  heavenly  places."  But 
the  Church  dwells  there  already,  by  her  faith ;  and  it 
is  in  the  heavenly  places  of  her  faith  and  hope  that/ 
she  is  assailed  by  the  powers  of  hell.  This  final  pre-j 
positional  clause  should  be  separated  by  a  comma  from 
the  words  immediately  foregoing  ;  it  forms  a  distinct 
predicate  to  the  sentence  contained  in  verse  12.  It 
specifies  the  locality  of  the  struggle ;  it  marks  out  the 
battle-field.  "  Our  wresthng  is  ...  in  the  heavenly 
places."  t  So  we  construe  the  sentence,  following  the 
ancient  Greek  commentators. 

*  See  p.  103. 

t  The  objection  against  the  common  rendering  taken  from  the 
absence  of  the  Greek  article  {to)  before  the  phrase  h  roh  iirovpautoi?, 
required  to  link  it  to  to,  TrvtvixariKo.  t^s  rovijplai,  is  not  decisive. 


4o8  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 


The  life  of  the  Church  "is  hid  with  the  Christ  in 
God " ;  her  treasure  is  laid  up  in  heaven.  She  is 
assailed  by  a  philosophy  and  vain  deceit  that  perverts 
her  highest  doctrines,  that  clouds  her  vision  of  Christ 
and  limits  His  glory,  and  threatens  to  drag  her  down 
from  the  high  places  where  she  sits  with  her  ascended 
Lord  *  Such  was,  in  effect,  the  aim  of  the  Colossian 
'  heresy,  and  of  the  great  Gnostical  movement  to  which 
this  speculation  was  a  prelude,  that  fon  a  century  and 
more  entangled  Christian  faith  in  its  metaphysical 
subtleties  and  false  mysticism.  The  epistles  to  the 
Colossians  and  Ephesians  strike  the  leading  note  of 
the  controversies  of  the  Church  in  this  region  during 
its  first  ages.  Their  character  was  thoroughly  trans- 
cendental. "  The  heavenly  things  "  were  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  great  conflicts  of  this  epoch. 

The  questions  of  religious  controversy  characteristic 

of  our  own  times,  though  not  identical  with  those  of 

Colossae    or    Ephesus,    concern   matters   equally   high 

and  vital.     It  is  not  this  or  that  doctrine  that  is  now 

at  stake — the  nature  or  extent  of  the  atonement,  the 

procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit  from   the  Son  with  the 

Father,  the  verbal  or  plenary  inspiration  of  Scripture ; 

but  the  personal  being  of  God,  the  historical  truth  of 

Christianity,  the  reality  of  the  supernatural, — these  and 

the  like  questions,  which  formed  the  accepted  basis  and 

the  common  assumptions  of  former  theological  discus- 

i  sions,  are  now  brought  into  dispute.     Religion  has  to 

I  justify  its   very  existence.     Christianity  must   answer 

'.  for  its  life,  as  at  the  beginning.     God  is  denied.     Wor- 

f  ship  is  openly  renounced.     Our  treasures   in    heaven 


*  Col.  ii.  8-10,  iii,    1-4;  Phil.  iii.   20,  21:  comp.  Epli.  i.  3,  ii.  6, 
18,  iv.  10,  15 ;  Heb.  vi.  19,  20,  etc. 


vi.  10-12.]  THE  FOES   OF  THE  CHURCH.  409 

are  proclaimed  to  be  worthless  and  illusive.  The  entire 
spiritual  and  celestial  order  of  things  is  relegated  to 
the  region  of  obsolete  fable  and  fairy  tales.  The  diffi-tV 
culties  of  modern  rehgious  thought  lie  at  the  foundatioru 
of  things,  and  touch  the  core  of  the  spiritual  life.  Un4 
belief  appears,  in  some  quarters,  to  be  more  serious^ 
and  earnest  than  faith.  While  we  quarrel  over  rubrics 
and  ritual,  thoughtful  men  are  despairing  of  God  and 
immortahty.  The  Churches  are  engaged  in  trivial  con- 
tentions with  each  other,  while  the  enemy  pushes  his 
way  through  our  broken  ranks  to  seize  the  citadel. 

''The  apostle  incites  the  readers,"  says  Chrysostom, 
"by  the  thought  of  the  prize  at  stake.  When  he  has 
said  that  our  enemies  are  powerful,  he  adds  thereto 
that  these  are  great  possessions  which  they  seek  to 
wrest  from  us.  When  he  says  in  the  heavenly  places, 
this  implies  for  the  heavenly  things.  How  it  must  rouse 
and  sober  us  to  know  that  the  hazard  is  for  great 
things,  and  great  will  be  the  prize  of  victory.  Our  foe 
strives  to  take  heaven  from  us."  Let  the  Church  be 
stripped  of  all  her  temporalities,  and  driven  naked  as 
at  first  into  the  wilderness.  She  carries  with  her  the 
crown  jewels ;  and  her  treasure  is  unimpaired,  so  long 
as  faith  in  Christ  and  the  hope  of  heaven  remain  firm  I 
in  her  heart.  But  let  these  be  lost ;  let  heaven  and  F 
the  Father  in  heaven  fade  with  our  childhood's  dreams ; 
let  Christ  go  back  to  His  grave — then  we  are  utterly 
undone.     We  have  lost  our  all  in  all ! 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 

THE  DIVINE  PANOPLY. 

"  Wherefore  take  up  the  whole  armour  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able 
to  withstand  in  the  evil  day,  and,  having  conquered  all,  to  stand. 
Stand  therefore,  having  girded  your  loins  with  truth,  and  having  put 
on  the  breastplate  of  righteousness,  and  having  shod  your  feet  with 
the  readiness  of  the  gospel  of  peace  ;  withal  taking  up  the  shield  of 
faith,  wherewith  ye  shall  be  able  to  quench  all  the  fiery  darts  of  the 
evil  one.  And  take  the  helmet  of  salvation,  and  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of  God  :  with  all  prayer  and  supplication 
praying  at  all  seasons  in  the  Spirit,  and  watching  thereunto  in  all 
perseverance  and  supplication  for  all  the  saints." — Eph.  vi.  13-18. 

C^TAND  is  the  watchword  for  this  battle,  the 
*^  apostle's  order  of  the  day  :  "  that  you  may  be  able 
to  stand  against  the  stratagems  of  the  devil,  .  .  .  that 
you  may  be  able  to  withstand  in  the  evil  day,  and 
mastering  all  your  enemies  *  to  stand.  .  .  .  Stand  there- 
fore, girding  your  loins  about  with  truth."  The 
apostle  is  fond  of  this  martial  style,  and  such  appeals 
are  frequent  in  the  letters  of  this  period.!  The  Gentile 
believers  are  raised  to  the  heavenly  places  of  fellow- 
ship with  Christ,  and  invested  with  the  lofty  character 
of  sons  and  heirs  of  God  :  let  them  hold  their  ground  ; 

*  Comp.  Rom.  viii.  37,  xvi.  20.  To  bring  down.,  overpower^  con- 
quer is  the  military  sense  of  Karepyd^o/xai, — not  found  elsewhere  in  the 
New  Testament,  but,  as  it  seems  to  us,  unmistakable  here.  It  occurs 
in  Ezek.  xxxiv.  4  (LXX),  and  i  Esdr.  iv.  4. 

t  Col.  i.  23,  ii.  5  ;  Phil.  i.  27-30,  iv.  i  :  comp.  i  Thess.  v.  8  ;  Rom. 
xiii.  1 1- 14;  I  Cor.  xvi.  13  ;  2  Cor.  x.  3-6. 

410 


vi.  I3-I8.]  THE  DIVINE  PANOPLY.  411 

let  them  maintain  the  honour  of  their  caUing  and  the 
wealth  of  their  high  estate,  standing  fast  in  the  grace 
that  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  Pro  aris  et  facts  the  patriot 
draws  his  sword,  and  manfully  repels  the  invader. 
Even  so  the  good  soldier  of  Christ  Jesus  contends 
for  his  heavenly  city  and  the  household  of  faith.  He 
defends  the  dearest  interests  and  hopes  of  human  life. 

This   defence   is  needed,   for   an   '^  evil  day "  is  at 
hand !     This  emphatic   reference  points  to  something 
more  definite  than  the  general  day  of  temptation  that 
is  co-extensive  with  our  earthly  life.     St  Paul  foresaw 
a  crisis  of  extreme  danger  impending  over  the  yoimg 
Church    of  Christ.     The   prophecies    of  Jesus  taught 
His  disciples,  from  the  first,  that  His  kingdom  could 
only  prevail  by  means  of  a  severe  conflict,  and  that 
some    desperate    struggle    would     precede    the    final 
Messianic  triumph.     This    prospect   looms   before  the 
minds  of  the  New  Testament  writers,  as  "  the  day  of 
Jehovah "  dominated  the  imagination  of   the   Hebrew 
prophets.     Paul's  apocalypse  in  i  and  2  Thessalonians 
is  full  of  reminiscences  of  Christ's  visions  of  judgement. 
It  culminates  in  the  prediction  of  the  evil  day  of  Anti- 
christ, which  is  to  usher  in  the  second,  glorious  coming 
of  the  Lord  Jesus.     The  consummation,  as  the  apostle 
was  then  inclined  to   think,  might  arrive  within  that 
generation  (i  Thess.  iv.  15,   17),  although  he  declares 
its  times  and  seasons  wholly  unknown.     In  his  later 
epistles,    and    in    this    especially,    it    is    clear   that    he 
anticipated  a   longer  duration  for   the    existing   order  • 
of  things ;  and    "  the  evil   day  "  for  which   the  Asian 
Churches   are  to  prepare  can    scarcely  have  denoted, 
to   the    apostle's    mind,    the   final   day   of   Antichrist, 
though  it  may  well  be  an  epoch  of  similar  nature  and 
a  token  and  shadow  of  the  last  things. 


412  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

In  point  of  fact,  a  great  secular  crisis  was  now 
approaching.  The  six  years  (64-70  after  Christ)  ex- 
tending from  the  fire  of  Rome  to  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
were  amongst  the  most  fateful  and  calamitous  recorded 
in  history.  This  period  was,  in  a  very  real  sense,  the 
day  of  judgement  for  Israel  and  the  ancient  world.  It 
was  a  foretaste  of  the  ultimate  doom  of  the  kingdom 
of  evil  amongst  men  ;  and  through  it  Christ  appears 
to  have  looked  forward  to  the  end  of  the  world. 
Already  ^' the  days  are  evil"  (v.  16);  and  ''the  evil 
day  "  is  at  hand — a  time  of  terror  and  despair  for  all 
who  have  not  a  firm  faith  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Two  chief  characteristics  marked  this  crisis,  as  it 
affected  the  people  of  Christ :  persecution  from  without ^ 
and  apostasy  within  the  Church  (Matt.  xxiv.  5,  8-12). 
To  the  latter  feature  St  Paul  refers  elsewhere.*  Of 
persecution  he  took  less  account,  for  this  was  indeed 
his  ordinary  lot,  and  had  already  visited  his  Churches  ; 
but  it  was  afterwards  to  assume  a  more  violent  and 
appalling  form. 

When  we  turn  to  the  epistle  to  the  Seven  Churches 
(Rev.  ii.,  iii.)  written  in  the  next  ensuing  period,  we 
find  a  fierce  battle  raging,  resembling  that  for  which 
this  letter  warns  the  Asian  Churches  to  prepare.  The 
storm  which  our  apostle  foresees,  had  then  burst.  The 
message  addressed  to  each  Church  concludes  with  a 
promise  to  "him  that  overcometh."  To  the  faithful 
it  is  said  :  "  I  know  thy  endurance."  The  angel  of 
the  Church  of  Pergamum  dwells  where  is  "  the  throne 
of  Satan,"  and  where  "  Antipas  the  faithful  martyr  was 
killed."  There  also,  says  the  Lord  Jesus,  "  are  those 
who  hold  the  teaching  of  Balaam,  and  the  teaching  of 
the  Nicolaitans,"  with  whom  "  I  will  make  war  with  the 

*  2  Thess.  ii.  3  ;  Acts  xx.  29,  30  ;  i  Tim.  iv.  i  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  i. 


vi.  13-18.]  THE  DIVINE  PANOPLY.  413 

sword  of  my  mouth"  (comp.  Eph.  vi.  17).  Laodicea 
has  shrunk  from  the  trial,  and  grown  rich  by  the 
world's  friendship.  Thyatira  "  suffers  the  woman 
Jezebel,  who  calls  herself  a  prophetess,  to  teach  and  to 
seduce "  the  servants  of  Christ.  Sardis  has  but  "  a 
few  names  that  have  not  defiled  their  garments." 
Even  Ephesus,  though  she  had  tried  the  false  teachers 
and  found  them  wanting  (surely  Paul's  epistles  to 
Timothy  had  helped  her  in  this  examination),  has  yet 
"  left  her  first  love."  The  day  of  trial  has  proved  an 
evil  day  to  these  Churches.  Satan  has  been  allowed 
to  sift  them ;  and  while  some  good  wheat  remains, 
much  of  the  faith  of  the  numerous  and  prosperous 
communities  of  the  province  of  Asia  has  turned  out  to 
be  faulty  and  vain.  The  presentiments  that  weighed 
on  St  Paul's  mind  when  four  years  ago  he  took  leave 
of  the  Ephesian  elders  at  Miletus,  and  which  reappear 
in  this  passage,  were  only  too  well  justified  by  the 
course  of  events.  Indeed,  the  history  of  the  Church 
in  this  region  has  been  altogether  mournful  and 
admonitory. 

But  it  is  time  to  look  at  the  armour  in  which  St  Paul 
bids  his  readers  equip  themselves  against  the  evil  day. 
It  consists  of  seven  weapons,  offensive  or  defensive — 
if  we  count  prayer  amongst  them  :  the  girdle  of  truth, 
the  breastplate  of  righteousness,  the  shoes  of  readiness  to 
bear  the  message  of  peace,  the  shield  of  faith,  the  helmet 
of  salvation,  the  sword  of  the  word,  and  the  continual  cry 
of  prayer, 

I.  In  girding  himself  for  the  field,  the  first  thing  the 
soldier  does  is  to  fasten  round  his  waist  the  military 
belt.  With  this  he  binds  in  his  under-garments,  that 
there  may  be  nothing  loose  or  trailing  about  him,  and 


414  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

braces  up  his  limbs  for  action.  Peace  admits  of 
relaxation.  The  girdle  is  unclasped ;  the  muscles  are 
unstrung.  But  everything  about  the  warrior  is  tense 
and  firm ;  his  dress,  his  figure  and  movements  speak 
of  decision  and  concentrated  energy.  He  stands  before 
us  an  image  of  resolute  conviction,  of  a  mind  made  up. 
Such  a  picture  the  vi^ords  ''girt  about  with  truth" 
convey  to  us. 

The  epistle  is  pervaded  by  the  sense  of  the  Church's 
need  of  intellectual  conviction.  Many  of  the  Asian 
beHevers  were  children,  half-enlightened  and  irresolute, 
ready  to  be  "  tossed  to  and  fro  and  carried  about  with 
every  wind  of  doctrine"  (iv.  14).  They  had  "heard 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,"  but  had  an  imperfect  com- 
prehension of  its  meaning.*  They  required  to  add  to 
their  faith  knowledge, — the  knowledge  won  by  searching 
thought  respecting  the  great  truths  of  religion,  by  a 
thorough  mental  appropriation  of  the  things  revealed 
to  us  in  Christ.  Only  by  such  a  process  can  truth 
brace  the  mind  and  knit  its  powers  together  in  "the 
full  assurance  of  the  understanding  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  mystery  of  God,  which  is  Christ "  (Col.  ii.  2,  3). 

Such  is  the  faith  needed  by  the  Church,  now  as  then, 
the  faith  of  an  intelligent,  firm  and  manly  assurance. 
There  is  in  such  faith  a  security  and  a  vigour  of  action 
that  the  faith  of  mere  sentiment  and  emotional  impres- 
sion, with  its  nerveless  grasp,  its  hectic  and  impulsive 
fervours,  cannot  impart.  The  luxury  of  agnosticism, 
the  languors  of  doubt,  the  vague  sympathies  and 
hesitant  eclecticism  in  which  delicate  and  cultured 
minds  are  apt  to  indulge ;  the  lofty  critical  attitude, 
as  of  some  intellectual  god  sitting  above  the  strife  of 
creeds,  which  others  find  congenial — these  are  condi- 

*  Ch.  i.  17-23,  iii.  16-19,  iv.  13-15,  20-24 


vi.  13-18.]  THE  DIVINE  PANOPLY.  4^5 

tions  of  mind  unfit  for  the  soldier  of  Christ  Jesus. 
He  must  have  sure  knowledge,  definite  and  decided 
purposes — a  soul  girdled  with  truth. 

2.  Having  girt  his  loins,  the  soldier  next  fastens  on 
his  breastplate,  or  cuirass.    . 

This  is  the  chief  piece  of  his  defensive  armour;  it 
protects  the  vital  organs.  In  the  picture  drawn  in 
I  Thessalonians  v.  8,  the  breastplate  is  made  '^of  faith 
and  love."  In  this  more  detailed  representation,  faith 
becomes  the  outlying  defensive  "shield,"  while  right- 
eousness serves  for  the  innermost  defence,  the  rampart 
of  the  heart.  But,  in  truth,  the  Christian  righteousness 
is  compounded  of  faith  and  love. 

This  attribute  must  be  understood  in  its  full  Pauline 
meaning.  It  is  the  state  of  one  who  is  right  with  God 
and  with  God's  law.  It  is  the  righteousness  both  of 
standing  and  of  character,  of  imputation  and  of  impar- 
tation,  which  begins  with  justification  and  continues  in 
the  new,  obedient  life  of  the  believer.  These  are  never 
separate,  in  the  true  doctrine  of  grace.  "  The  righteous- 
ness that  is  of  God  by  faith,"  is  the  soul's  main  defence 
against  the  shafts  of  Satan.  It  wards  off  deadly  blows, 
both  from  this  side  and  from  that.  Does  the  enemy 
bring  up  against  me  my  old  sins  ?  I  can  say  :  ''  It  is 
God  that  justifieth ;  who  is  he  that  condemneth  ?  " — Am 
I  tempted  to  presume  on  my  forgiveness,  and  to  fall 
into  transgression  once  more  ?  From  this  breastplate 
the  arrow  of  temptation  falls  pointless,  as  it  resounds : 
"  He  that  doeth  righteousness  is  righteous.  He  that  is 
born  of  God  doth  not  commit  sin."  The  completeness 
of  pardon  for  past  offence  and  the  integrity  of  character 
that  belong  to  the  justified  life,  are  woven  together  into 
an  impenetrable  mail. 

3.  Now  the  soldier,  having  girt  his  loins  and  guarded 


4i6  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

his  breast,  must  look  well  to  his  feet.     There  are  lying 
ready  for  him  shoes  of  wondrous  make. 

What  is  the  quality  most  needed  in  the  soldier's 
shoes  ?  Some  say,  it  is  firmness ;  and  they  so  translate 
the  Greek  word  employed  by  the  apostle,  occurring  only 
here  in  the  New  Testament,  which  in  certain  passages 
of  the  Septuagint  seems  to  acquire  this  sense,  under 
the  influence  of  Hebrew  idiom.*  But  firmness  was 
embodied  in  the  girdle.  Expedition  belongs  to  the 
shoes.  The  soldier  is  so  shod  that  he  may  move  with 
alertness  over  all  sorts  of  ground. 

Thus  shod  with  speed  and  wiUingness  were  ^^  the 
beautiful  feet "  of  those  that  brought  over  desert  and 
mountain  ''the  good  tidings  of  peace,"  the  news  of 
Israel's  return  to  Zion  (Isai.  Hi.  7-9).  With  such  swift 
strength  were  the  feet  of  our  apostle  shod,  when  "  from 
Jerusalem  round  about  unto  Illyricum  "  he  had  *'  fulfilled 
the  gospel  of  Christ,"  and  is  ''ready,"  as  he  says,  "to 
preach  the  glad  tidings  to  you  also  that  are  in  Rome  " 
(Rom.  i.  15).  This  readiness  belonged  to  His  own 
holy  feet,  who  "  came  and  preached  peace  to  the  far  off 
and  the  near"  (ii.  17),— when,  for  example,  sitting  a 
weary  traveller  by  the  well-side  at  Sychar,  He  found 
refreshment  in  revealing  to  the  woman  of  Samaria  the 
fountain  of  living  water.  Such  readiness  befits  His 
servants,  who  have  heard  from  Him  the  message  of 
salvation  and  are  sent  to  proclaim  it  everywhere. 

The  girdle  and  breastplate  look  to  one's  own  safety. 
They  must  be  supplemented  by  the  evangelic  zeal 
inseparable  from  the  spirit  of  Christ.     This  is,  more- 


*  "EtToiixaaioL  is  adopted  by  the  Greek  translators  as  the  equivalent  of 
the  Hebrew  word  iox  foundation,  or  base,  in  Ps.  Ixxxix.  14;  Ezra  ii.  68, 
iii.  3 ;  Dan.  xi.  7,  20,  21.  See,  however,  the  note  of  Meyer,  who 
thmks  that  they  misunderstood  the  Hebrew. 


vi.  I3-I8]  THE  DIVINE  PANOPLY.  417 


over,  a  safeguard  of  Church  life.  Von  Hofmann  says 
admirably  upon  this  point :  "  The  objection  [brought 
against  the  above  interpretation]  that  the  apostle  is 
addressing  the  faithful  at  large,  who  are  not  all  of 
them  called  to  preach  the  gospel,  is  mistaken.  Every 
believer  should  be  prepared  to  witness  for  Christ  so 
often  as  opportunity  affords,  and  needs  a  readiness 
thereto.  The  knowledge  of  Christ's  peace  qualifies 
him  to  convey  its  message.  He  brings  it  with  him 
into  the  strife  of  the  world.  And  it  is  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  possesses  himself  such  peace  and  has  it 
to  communicate  to  others,  which  enables  him  to  walk 
firmly  and  with  sure  step  in  the  way  of  faith."  When 
we  are  bidden  to  ^^  stand  in  the  evil  day,"  that  does 
not  mean  to  stand  idle  or  content  to  hold  our  ground. 
Attack  is  often  the  best  mode  of  defence.  We  keep 
our  faith  by  spreading  it.  We  defend  ourselves  from 
our  opponents  by  converting  them  to  the  gospel,  which 
breathes  everywhere  reconciliation  and  fraternity.  Our 
Foreign  Missions  are  our  grand  modern  apologetic ; 
and  God's  peacemakers  are  His  mightiest  warriors. 

4.  With  his  body  girt  and  fenced  and  his  feet  clad 
with  the  gospel  shoes,  the  soldier  reaches  out  his  left 
hand  to  "take  up  withal  the  shield!'  while  his  right 
hand  grasps  first  the  helmet  which  he  places  on  his 
head,  and  then  the  sword  that  is  offered  to  him  in  the 
word  of  God. 

The  shield  signified  is  not  the  small  round  buckler, 
or  target,  of  the  light-armed  man  ;  but  the  door-Hke 
shield,*  measuring  four  feet  by  two-and-a-half  and 
rounded  to  the  shape  of  the  body,  that  the  Greek 
hoplite  and  the  Roman  legionary  carried.  Joined 
together,   these   large  shields   formed   a  wall,    behind 

*  Gypeos  :  Latin  sciitwii  ;  only  here  in  N.  T. 

27 


4i8  THE   EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

which  a  body  of  troops  could  hide  themselves  from 
the  rain  of  the  enemy's  missiles.  Such  is  the  office 
of  faith  in  the  conflicts  of  Hfe  :  it  is  the  soldier's  main 
defence,  the  common  bulwark  of  the  Church.  Like  the 
city's  outer  wall,  faith  bears  the  brunt  and  onset  of 
all  hostility.  On  this  shield  of  faith  the  darts  of  Satan 
are  caught,  their  point  broken  and  their  fire  quenched. 
These  military  shields  were  made  of  wood,  covered 
on  the  outside  with  thick  leather,  which  not  only 
deadened  the  shock  of  the  missile,  but  protected  the 
frame  of  the  shield  from  the -''fire-tipped  darts"  that 
were  used  in  the  artillery  of  the  ancients.  These 
flaming  arrows,  armed  with  some  quickly  burning  and 
light  combustible,  if  they  failed  to  pierce  the  warrior's 
shield,  fell  in  a  moment  extinguished  at  his  feet. 

St  Paul  can  scarcely  mean  by  his  ''  fiery  darts " 
incitements  to  passion  in  ourselves,  inflammatory 
temptations  that  seek  to  rouse  the  inward  fires  of 
anger  or  lust.  For  these  missiles  are  ''  fire-pointed 
darts  of  the  Evil  Om!\  The  fire  belongs  to  the  enemy 
who  shoots  the  dart.  It  signifies  the  malignant  hate 
with  which  Satan  hurls  slanders  and  threats  against 
the  people  of  God  through  his  human  instruments.  A 
bold  raith  wards  off"  and  quenches  this  fire  even  at  a 
distance,  so  that  the  soul  never  feels  its  heat.  The 
heart's  confidence  is  unmoved  and  the  Church's  songs 
of  praise  are  undisturbed,  while  persecution  rages  and 
the  enemies  of  Christ  gnash  their  teeth  against  her. 
Such  a  shield  to  him  was  the  faith  of  Stephen  the 
proto-martyr. 

"  I  heard  the  defaming  of  many ;  there  was  terror  on  every  side. 
But  I  trusted  in  Thee,  O  Jehovah  :  I  said,  Thou  art  my  God  ! " 

To  "  take  up  the  shield  of  faith,"  is  it  not,  Hke  the 


vi.  13-18.]  THE   DIVINE  PANOPLY.  419 

Psalmist,  to  meet  injuries  and  threats,  the  boasts  of 
unbelief  and  of  worldly  power,  the  poisoned  arrows  of 
the  deceitful  and  the  bitter  words  of  unjust  reproach, 
with  faith's  quiet  counter-assertion  ?  "  Who  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ?  "  says  the  apostle 
in  the  midst  of  tribulation.  "  God  is  my  witness,  whom 
I  serve  in  the  gospel  of  His  Son,"  he  answers  when  his 
fidelity  is  questioned.  No  shaft  of  malice,  no  arrow  of 
fear  can  pierce  the  soul  that  holds  such  a  shield. 

5.  At  this  point  (ver.  17),  when  the  sentence 
beginning  at  verse  14  has  drawn  itself  out  to  such 
length,  and  the  relative  clause  of  verse  i6b  makes  a 
break  and  eddy  in  the  current  of  thought,  the  writer 
pauses  for  a  moment.  He  resumes  the  exhortation  in 
a  form  slightly  changed  and  with  rising  emphasis, 
passing  from  the  participle  to  the  finite  verb  :  "  And 
take  the  helmet  of  salvation!^ 

The  word  take,  in  the  original,  differs  from  the  taking 
up  of  verses  13  and  16.  It  signifies  the  accepting  of-^ 
something  offered  by  the  hand  of  another.  So  the 
Thessalonians  ^^  accepted  the  word"  brought  them' by 
St  Paul  (i  Thess.  i.  6)  and  Titus  ^^ accepted  the  con- 
solation" given  him  by  the  Corinthians  (2  Cor.  viii.  17) 
— in  each  case  a  welcome  gift.  God's  hand  is  stretched 
out  to  bestow  on  His  chosen  warrior  the  helmet  of 
salvation  and  the  sword  of  His  word,  to  complete  his 
equipment  for  the  perilous  field.  We  accept  these  gifts 
with  devout  gratitude,  knowing  from  what  source  they 
come  and  where  the  heavenly  arms  were  fashioned. 

The  ''  helmet  of  salvation "  is  worn  by  the  Lord 
Himself,  as  He  is  depicted  by  the  prophet  coming  to 
the  succour  of  His  people  (Isai.  lix.  17).  This  helmet, 
on  the  head  of  Jehovah,  is  the  crest  and  badge  of  their 
Divine   champion.     Given  to    the   human    warrior,    it 


420  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE   EPHESIANS. 

becomes  the  sign  of  his  protection  by  God.  The 
apostle  does  not  call  it  "  the  hope  of  salvation,"  as  he 
does  in  I  Thessalonians  v.  8,  thinking  of  the  believer's 
assurance  of  victory  in  the  last  struggle.  Nor  is  it  the 
sense  and  assurance  of  past  salvation  that  here  guards 
the  Christian  soldier.  The  presence  of  his  Saviour  and 
God  in  itself  constitutes  his  highest  safeguard. 

*'  O  Jehovah  my  Lord,  the  strength  of  my  salvation, 
Thou  hast  covered  my  head  in  the  day  of  battle." 

The  warrior's  head  rising  above  his  shield  was  fre- 
quently open  to  attack.  The  arrow  might  shoot  over 
the  shield's  edge,  and  inflict  a  mortal  blow.  Our  faith, 
at  the  best,  has  its  deficiencies  and  its  limits;  but 
God's  salvation  reaches  beyond  our  highest  confidence 
in  Him.  His  overshadowing  presence  is  the  crown  of 
our  salvation,  His  love  its  shining  crest. 

Thus  the  equipment  of  Christ's  soldier  is  complete  ; 
and  he  is  arrayed  in  the  full  armour  of  light.  His 
loins  girt  with  truth,  his  breast  clad  with  righteousness, 
his  feet  shod  with  zeal,  his  head  crowned  with  safety, 
while  faith's  all-encompassing  shield  is  cast  about  him, 
he  steps  forth  to  do  battle  with  the  powers  of  darkness, 
"strong  in  the  Lord,  and  in  the  might  of  His  strength." 

6.  It  only  remains  that  "  the  sword  of  the  Spirit " 
be  put  into  his  right  hand,  while  his  lips  are  open  in 
continual  prayer  to  the  God  of  his  strength. 

The  "  cleansing  word "  of  chapter  v.  26,  by  whose 
virtue  we  passed  through  the  gate  of  baptism  into  the 
flock  of  Christ,  now  becomes  the  guarding  and  smiting 
word,  to  be  used  in  conflict  with  our  spiritual  foes.  Of 
the  Messiah  it  was  said,  in  language  quoted  by  the 
apostle  against  Antichrist  (2  Thess.  ii.  8)  :  "  He  shall 
smite  the  earth  with  the  rod  of  His  mouth,  and  with 


vi.  I3-I8.]  THE   DIVINE  PANOPLY.  421 


the  breath  of  His  lips  shall  He  slay  the  wicked" 
(Isai.  xi.  4).  Similarly,  in  Hosea  the  Lord  tells  how 
He  has  "  hewed  "  the  unfaithful  '*  by  His  prophets,  and 
slain  them  by  the  words  of  His  mouth  "  (Hos.  vi.  5). 
From  such  sayings  of  the  Old  Testament  the  idea  of  the 
sword  of  the  Divine  word  is  derived.  We  find  it  again 
in  Hebrews  iv.  12:  "The  word  of  God,  living  and 
active,  sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword " ;  and  in 
the  "  sword,  two-edged,  sharp,"  which  John  in  the 
Revelation  saw  "  coming  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Son 
of  man  "  :  it  belongs  to  Him  whose  naYne  is  ''  the  word 
of  God,"  and  with  it  "  He  shall  smite  the  nations."  * 

This  sword  of  the  inspired  word  Paul  himself 
wielded  with  supernatural  effect,  as  when  he  rebuked 
Elymas  the  sorcerer,  or  when  he  defended  his  gospel 
against  the  Judaizers  of  Galatia  and  Corinth.  In  his 
hand  it  was  even  as 

"The  sword 
Of  Michael,  from  the  armoury  of  God, 
.  .  .  tempered  so  that  neither  keen 
Nor  solid  might  resist  that  edge." 

With  what  piercing  reproofs,  what  keen  thrusts  of 
argument,  what  double-edged  irony  and  dexterous 
sword-play  did  this  mighty  combatant  smite  the  enemies 
of  the  cross  of  Christ !  In  times  of  conflict  never  may 
such  leaders  be  wanting  to  the  Church,  men  using 
weapons  of  warfare  not  carnal,  but  mighty  to  '^  cast 
down  strongholds,"  to  "bring  down  every  high  thing 
that  exalts  itself  against  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
make  captive  every  thought  to  Christ's  obedience." 

In  her  struggle  with  the  world's  gigantic  lusts  and 
tyrannies,  the  Israel  of  God  must  be  armed  with  this 

*  Rev.  i.  16,  ii.  12,  xix.  13-15. 


422  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

lofty  and  lightning-like  power,  with  the  flaming  sword 
of  the  Spirit.  No  less  in  the  secret,  internal  conflicts 
of  the  religious  life,  the  sword  of  the  word  is  the 
decisive  weapon.  The  Son  of  man  put  it  to  proof  in 
His  combat  in  the  wilderness.  Satan  himself  sought 
to  wrest  this  instrument  to  his  purpose.  With  pious 
texts  in  his  mouth  he  addressed  our  Lord,  Hke  an  angel 
of  light,  fain  to  deceive  Him  by  the  very  Scripture  He 
had  Himself  inspired !  until,  with  the  last  thrust  of 
quotation,  Jesus  unmasked  the  tempter  and  drove  him 
from  the  field,  saying,  ''  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan  ! " 

7.  We  have  surveyed  the  Christian  soldier  with  his 
harness  on.  From  head  to  foot  he  is  clothed  in  arms 
supernatural.  No  weapon  of  defence  or  offence  is 
lacking,  that  the  spiritual  combat  needs.  Nothing 
seems  to  be  wanting :  yet  everything  is  wanting,  if  this 
be  all.  Our  text  began  :  '*  Be  strong  in  the  Lord." 
It  is  prayer  that  links  the  believer  with  the  strength 
of  God. 

What  avails  Michael's  sword,  if  the  hand  that  holds 
it  is  slack  and  listless  ?  what  the  panoply  of  God,  if 
behind  it  beats  a  craven  heart  ?  He  is  but  a  soldier 
in  semblance  who  wears  arms  without  the  courage  and 
the  strength  to  use  them.  The  life  that  is  to  animate 
that  armed  figure,  to  beat  with  high  resolve  beneath 
the  corslet,  to  nerve  the  arm  as  it  lifts  the  strong  shield 
and  plies  the  sharp  sword,  to  set  the  swift  feet  moving 
on  their  gospel  errands,  to  weld  the  Church  together 
into  one  army  of  the  living  God,  comes  from  the  inspira- 
tion of  God's  Spirit  received  in  answer  to  believing 
prayer.  So  the  apostle  adds  :  "  With  all  prayer  and 
supplication  praying  at  every  time  in  the  Spirit." 

There  is  here  no  needless  repetition.  ''Prayer"  is 
the  universal  word  for  reverent  address  to  God  ;  and 


vi.  13-18.]  THE  DIVINE  PANOPLY,  423 


"  supplication  "  the  entreaty  for  such  help  as  "  on  every 
occasion  "—at  each  turn  of  the  battle,  in  each  emergency 
of  life— we  find  ourselves  to  need.  And  Christian 
prayer  is  alv^ays  "in  the  Spirit,"— being  offered  in  the 
grace  and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  is  the  element 
of  the  believer's  life  in  Christ,  who  helps  our  infirmi- 
ties and,  virtually,  intercedes  for  us  (Rom.  viii.  26,  27). 
When  the  apostle  continues,  '*  watchmg  [or  keeping  awake] 
thereunto,"  he  reminds  us,  as  perhaps  he  was  thinking 
himself,  of  our  Lord's  warning  to  the  disciples  sleeping 
in  Gethsemane:  ''Watch  and  pray,  lest  ye  enter  into 
temptation."  The  "  perseverance  "  he  requires  in  this 
wakeful  attention  to  prayer,  is  the  resolute  persistence 
of  the  suppliant,  who  will  neither  be  daunted  by  opposi- 
tion nor  wearied  by  delay.* 

The  word  ''  supplication "  is  resumed  at  the  end  of 
verse  18,  in  order  to  enlist  the  prayers  of  the  readers 
for  the  service  of  the  Church  at  large  :  "  with  wakeful 
heed  thereto,  in  all  persistence  and  supplication  far  all 
the  saints.''  Prayer  for  ourselves  must  broaden  out 
into  a  catholic  intercession  for  all  the  servants  of  our 
Master,  for  all  the  children  of  the  household  of  faith. 
By  the  bands  of  prayer  we  are  knit  together, — a  vast 
multitude  of  saints  throughout  the  earth,  unknown  by 
face  or  name  to  our  fellows,  but  one  in  the  love  of 
Christ  and  in  our  heavenly  calling,  and  all  engaged  in 
the  same  perilous  conflict. 

"All  the  saints,"  St  Paul  said  (i.  15),  were  interested 
in  the  faith  of  the  Asian  believers ;  they  were  called 
"  with  all  the  saints  "  to  share  in  the  comprehension 

*  'El/  xdcrri  irpoa-KapTep-^crei  :  in  every  kind  of  persistence^ — a  persever- 
ance that  tries  all  arts  and  holds  its  ground  at  every  point.  The  verb 
irpo(TKapTepeio  appears  in  the  parallel  passages :  Col.  iv.  2 ;  Rom.  xii.  12  ; 
also  in  Acts  i.  14. 


424  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

of  the  immense  designs  of  God's  kingdom  (iii.  i8). 
The  dangers  and  temptations  of  the  Church  are  equally 
far-reaching ;  they  have  a  common  origin  and  character 
in  all  Christian  communities.  Let  our  prayers,  at 
least,  be  catholic.  At  the  throne  of  grace,  let  us  forget 
our  sectarian  divisions.  Having  access  in  one  Spirit 
to  the  Father,  let  us  realize  in  His  presence  our  com- 
munion with  all  His  children. 


THE    CONCLUSION. 
Chapter  vi.   19-24. 


425 


TLerei&fiaL  yap  on  oUre  ddvaros  ovre  fwr/  oUre  AyyeXoL  oUre  dpxcd  oifre 
evearioTa  oi/re  fi^XKovTa  oUre  Svudfxen  oUre  i\pb)ixa.  oire  Bd^os  oijre  m 
KTLffLs  er^pa  bw-qaeraL  rifids  X'^P'^'^^'-  ^"""^  "^V^  dydrrji  toO  Qeov  rrjs  kv 
'Kpiarip  'I-ijaov  ry  Kupiy  VH-^^- — ROM.  viii.  38,  39. 

''Love  for  Christ  is  immortal." — R.  W.  Dale. 


426 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

REQUEST:   COMMENDATION :  BENEDICTION. 

"And  [pray]  on  my  behalf,  that  the  word  may  be  given  unto  me 
in  opening  my  mouth,  to  make  known  with  boldness  the  mystery  of 
the  gospel,  for  which  I  am  an  ambassador  in  chains  ;  that  in  it  I  may 
speak  boldly,  as  I  ought  to  speak. 

"But  that  ye  also  may  know  my  affairs,  how  I  do,  Tychicus,  the 
beloved  brother  and  faithful  minister  in  the  Lord,  shall  make  known 
to  you  all  things  :  whom  I  have  sent  unto  you  for  this  very  purpose, 
that  ye  may  know  our  state,  and  that  he  may  comfort  your  hearts." — 
Eph.  vi.  19-22. 

THE  apostle  has  bidden  his  readers  apply  them- 
selves with  wakeful  and  incessant  earnestness 
to  prayer  (ver.  18).  For  this  is,  after  all,  the  chief 
arm  of  the  spiritual  combat.  By  this  means  the  soul 
draws  reinforcements  of  mercy  and  hope  from  the 
eternal  sources  (ver.  10).  By  this  means  the  Asian 
Christians  will  be  able  not  only  to  carry  on  their  own 
conflict  with  vigour,  but  to  help  all  the  saints  (ver.  18)  ; 
and  through  their  aid  the  whole  Church  of  God  will 
be  sustained  in  its  war  with  the  prince  of  this  world. 

The  apostle  Paul  himself  stood  in  the  forefront  of 
this  battle.  He  was  suffering  for  the  cause  of  common 
Christendom  ;  he  was  a  mark  for  the  attack  of  the 
enemies  of  the  gospel.*  On  him,  more  than  on  any 
other   man,    the   safety   and  progress  of  the   Church 

*  Col.  i,  24— ii.  I ;  Phil.  i.  16. 
427 


428  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

depended  (Phil.  i.  25).  In  this  position  he  naturally 
says  :  ^'  Watching  unto  prayer  in  all  perseverance  and 
supplication  for  all  the  saints — and  for  meP  If  his 
heart  should  fail  him,  or  his  mouth  be  closed,  if  the 
word  of  inspiration  ceased  to  be  given  him  and  the 
great  teacher  of  the  Gentiles  in  faith  and  truth  no 
longer  spoke  as  he  ought  to  speak,  it  would  be  a  heavy 
blow  and  sore  discouragement  to  the  friends  of  Christ 
throughout  the  world.  ''  My  afflictions  are  your  glory 
(iii.  13).  My  unworthy  testimony  to  Christ  is  showing 
forth  His  praise  to  all  men  and  angels.*  Pray  for  me 
then,  that  I  may  speak  and  act  in  this  hour  of  trial 
in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  dispensation  given  to  me." 

Strong  and  confident  as  the  apostle  Paul  was,  he 
felt  himself  to  be  nothing  without  prayer.  It  is  his 
habit  to  expect  the  support  of  the  intercessions  of  all 
who  love  him  in  Christ. f  He  knew  that  he  was  helped 
by  this  means,  on  numberless  occasions  and  in  wonder- 
ful ways.  He  asks  his  present  readers  to  entreat  that 
*'  the  word  %  may  be  given  me  when  I  open  my  mouth, 
so  that  I  may  freely  make  known  the  mystery  of  the 
gospel,  on  which  behalf  I  serve  as  ambassador  in  bonds, 
that  in  it  I  may  speak  freely,  as  I  ought  to  speak." 
This  sentence  hangs  upon  the  verb  '' may-be-given." 
Jesus  said  to  His  apostles  :  ''  It  shall  be  given  you  in 
that  hour  what  you  shall  speak,  when  brought  before 
rulers  and  kings"  (Matt.  x.  18-20).    The  apostle  stands 

*  Ch.  ii.  7,  iii.  10;  Phil.  i.  20;  2  Tim.  iv.  17. 

t  I  Thess.  V.  25 ;  2  Thess.  iii.  i ;  Rom.  xv.  30-32  ;  Col.  iv.  3,  etc. 

\  Out  of  the  instances  in  which  the  English  Version  renders  \byo% 
in  St  Paul  by  utterance^  the  Revisers  have  substituted  word  for  utter- 
ance only  in  Col.  iv.  3.  One  wishes  they  had  done  so  throughout. 
For  X6'yos  surely  implies  the  content,  the  import  of  what  is  said.  This 
passage  reminds  us  of  John  xvii.  14:  "I  have  given  them  Thy  word  "; 
and  xiv.  24  :  "  The  word  which  ye  hear  is  not  mine,  but  His." 


vi.  19, 20.]  THE  REQUEST.  429 

now  before  the  Roman  world.  He  has  appealed  to 
Caesar,  and  awaits  his  trial.  If  he  has  not  yet  appeared 
at  the  Emperor's  tribunal,  he  will  shortly  have  to  do 
so.  Christ's  ambassador  is  about  to  plead  in  chains 
before  the  highest  of  human  courts.  It  is  not  his 
own  life  or  freedom  that  he  is  concerned  about;  the 
ambassador  has  only  to  consider  how  he  shall  represent 
his  Sovereign's  interests.  The  importance  which  Paul 
attached  to  this  occasion,  is  manifest  from  the  words 
written  to  Timothy  (2  Ep.  iv.  17)  referring  to  his  later 
trial.  St  Paul  has  this  special  need  in  his  thoughts, 
in  addition  to  the  help  from  above  continually  required 
in  the  discharge  of  his  ministry,  under  the  hampering 
conditions  of  his  imprisonment  (comp.  Col.  iv.  3,  4). 

The  Church  must  entreat  on  Paul's  behalf  that  the 
word  he  utters  may  be  God's,  and  not  his  own.  It  is 
in  vain  to  "  open  the  mouth,"  unless  there  is  this  higher 
prompting  and  through  the  gates  of  speech  there  issues 
a  Divine  message,  unless  the  speaker  is  the  mouth- 
piece of  the  Holy  Spirit  rather  than  of  his  individual 
thought  and  will.  ^*  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you," 
Jesus  said,  "  I  speak  not  of  myself."  The  bold  apostle 
intends  to  open  his  mouth  ;  but  he  must  have  the 
true  "  word  given "  him  to  say.  We  should  pray  for 
Christ's  ambassadors,  and  especially  for  the  more  public 
and  eloquent  pleaders  of  the  Christian  cause,  that  it 
may  be  thus  with  them.  Rash  and  vain  words,  that 
bear  the  stamp  of  the  mere  man  who  utters  them  and 
not  of  the  Spirit  of  his  Master,  do  a  hurt  to  the  cause 
of  the  gospel  proportioned  to  the  blessing  that  comes 
from  such  lips  when  they  speak  the  word  given  to  them. 

Such  inspiration  would  enable  the  apostle  to  ''make 
known  the  mystery  of  the  gospel  with  freedom  and 
confidence  of  speech  "  :  the  expression  rendered  ^'  with 


430  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

boldness  "  *  means  all  this.  Before  the  emperor  Nero, 
or  the  slave  Onesimus,  he  will  be  able  with  the  same 
aptness  and  dignity  and  self-command  to  declare  his 
message  and  to  vindicate  his  Master's  name.  "  The 
mystery  of  the  gospel "  is  no  other  secret  than  that 
which  this  epistle  unfolds  (iii.  3-9),  the  great  fact  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  Saviour  and  the  Lord  of  the  whole 
world.  Jesus  proclaimed  Himself  to  Pilate,  who  repre- 
sented at  Jerusalem  the  imperial  rule,  as  the  King  of 
all  who  are  of  the  truth ;  and  the  apostle  Paul  has 
the  like  message  to  convey  to  the  head  of  the  Empire. 
It  needed  the  greatest  boldness  and  the  greatest  wisdom 
in  the  ambassador  of  the  Messianic  King  to  play  his 
part  at  Rome  ;  an  unwise  word  might  make  his  own  life 
forfeit,  and  bring  incalculable  dangers  on  the  Church. 

St  Paul's  trial,  we  suppose,  passed  off  successfully, 
as  he  at  this  time  anticipated.!  The  Roman  govern- 
ment was  perfectly  aware  that  the  political  charge 
against  their  prisoner  was  frivolous  ;  and  Nero,  if  he 
personally  gave  Paul  a  hearing  on  this  earlier  trial,  in 
all  probability  viewed  his  spiritual  pretensions  on  his 
Master's  behalf  with  contemptuous  tolerance.  If  he  did 
so,  the  toleration  was  not  due  to  any  want  of  courage  or 
clearness  on  the  defendant's  part.  It  is  possible  even 
that  the  courage  and  address  of  the  advocate  of  the 
"new  superstition"  pleased  the  tyrant,  who  was  not 
without  his  moments  of  good  humour  nor  without  the 
instincts  of  a  man  of  taste.  The  apostle,  we  may  well 
believe,  made  an  impression  on  the  supreme  court  at 
Rome  similar  to  that  made  on  his  judges  in  Csesarea. 

St  Paul's  bonds  in  Christ  have  now  become  widely 

*  'Epjrapprjfflq. :  comp.  iii.  12 ;  Phil.  i.  20;  Philem.  8;  2  Cor.  vii.  4; 
1  Thess.  ii.  2,  etc. 
t  Phil.  i.  25,  26,  ii.  23,  24 ;  Philem.  22. 


vi.2i,  22.]  THE   COMMENDATION.  431 

"manifest"  in  Rome  (Phil.  i.  13).  He  pleads  in  cir- 
cumstances of  disgrace.  But  God  brings  good  for  His 
servants  out  of  evil.  As  he  said  at  a  later  time,  so 
he  could  say  now  :  "  They  have  bound  me  ;  but  they 
cannot  bind  the  word  of  God."  *  He  was  "  not 
ashamed  of  the  gospel"  in  the  prospect  of  coming 
to  Rome  years  before  (Rom.  i.  16)  ;  and  he  is  not 
ashamed  now,  though  he  has  come  in  chains  as  an 
evil-doer.  Through  the  intercessions  of  Christ's 
people  all  these  injuries  of  Satan  are  turning  to  his 
salvation  and  to  the  "furtherance  of  the  gospel";  and 
Paul  rejoices  and  triumphs  in  them,  well  assured  that 
Christ  will  be  magnified  whether  by  his  life  or  death, 
whether  by  his  freedom  or  his  chains  (Phil.  i.  12-26). 
The  prayers  which  the  imprisoned  apostle  asks  from 
the  Church  were  fulfilled.  For  we  read  in  the  last 
verses  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which  put  into  a 
sentence  the  history  of  this  period  :  "  He  received  all 
that  came  to  him,  preaching  the  kingdom  and  teaching 
the  things  concerning  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  with  all 
boldness,  none  forbidding  him." 

The  paragraph  relating  to  Tychicus  is  almost  identical 
with  that  of  Colossians  iv.  7,  8.  It  begins  with  a  ''  But " 
connecting  what  follows  with  the  statement  the  apostle 
has  just  made  respecting  his  position  at  Rome.  As 
much  as  to  say :  "  I  want  your  prayers,  set  as  I  am 
for  the  defence  of  the  gospel  and  in  circumstances  of 
difficulty  and  peril.  But  Tychicus  will  tell  you  more 
about  me  than  I  can  convey  by  letter.  I  am  sending 
him,  in  fact,  for  this  very  purpose." 

St  Paul  knew  the  great  anxiety  of  the  Christians  of 
Asia  on  his  account.     Epaphras  of  Colossae  had  "  shown 

*  2  Tim.  i.  7-12,  ii.  3-10. 


432  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

him  the  love  in  the  Spirit "  that  was  felt  towards  him 

even  by  those  in  this  region  who  had  never  seen  him 

in  the  flesh  (Col.  i.  8).     The  tender  heart  of  the  apostle 

is  touched  by  this  assurance.     So  he  sends  Tychicus 

to  visit  as  many  of  the  Asian  Churches  as  he  may  be 

able  to  reach,  bringing  news  that  will  cheer  their  hearts 

and  relieve  their  discouragement  (iii.  13).*     The  note 

.Vi  sent  at  this  time  to   Philemon    indicates    the  hopeful 

y\^  ^  tidings  that  Tychicus  was  able  to  convey  to  Paul's  friends 

"jx*^.      in  the  East :  ''  I  trust  that  through  your  prayers  I  shall 

*  ^  A  be  given  to  you"  (Philem.  22).     To  the  Philippians  he 

,  *    writes,  perhaps  a  little  later,  in  the  same  strain:    "I 

trust  in  the  Lord  that  I   myself  shall  come  shortly " 

(Phil.  ii.  24).     He  anticipates,  with  some  confidence, 

his  speedy  acquital  and  release :  it  is  not  likely  that 

this  expectation,  on  the  part  of  such  a  man  as  St  Paul, 

was  disappointed.     The    good   news  went    round    the 

Asian  and  Macedonian  Churches  :  "  Paul  is  likely  soon 

to  be  free,  and  we  shall  see  and  hear  him  again  ! " 

In  the  parallel  epistle  he  writes,  "  that  you  may 
know "  (Col.  iv.  8)  ;  here  it  is,  ''  that  you  also  may 
know  my  affairs."  The  added  word  is  significant. 
The  writer  is  imagining  his  letter  read  in  the  various 
assemblies  which  it  will  reach.  He  has  the  other 
epistle  in  his  mind,  and  remembering  that  he  there 
introduced  Tychicus  in  similar  terms,  he  says  to  this 
wider  circle  of  Asian  disciples  :  '*  That  you  also,  as  well 
as  the  Churches  of  the  Lycus  valley,  may  know  how 
things  are  with  me,  I  send  Tychicus  to  give  you  a  full 
report."  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  look  beyond 
the  last  two  verses  for  the  reference  of  the  also  of 
verse  21  :  **  I  have  asked  your  prayers  on  my  behalf; 
and    I  wish  you  in  turn  to  know  how  things  go  with 

*  Comp.  Phil.  i.  24-26. 


vi.2i,22.]  THE   COMMENDATION.  433 

me."  Possibly,  there  were  some  matters  connected 
with  St  Paul's  trial  at  Rome  that  could  not  be  fitly  or 
safely  communicated  by  letter.  Hence  he  adds  :  "  He 
shall  make  known  unto  you  all  things."  When  he 
writes  "  that  ye  may  know  my  affairs,  how  I  do,"  we 
gather  that  Tychicus  was  to  communicate  to  those  he 
visited  everything  about  the  beloved  apostle  that  would 
be  of  interest  to  his  Asian  brethren. 

The  apostle  commends  Tychicus  in  language  identical 
in  the  two  letters,  except  that  in  Colossians  "  fellow- 
servant"  is  added  to  the  honourable  designations  of 
"beloved  brother  and  faithful  minister,"  under  which 
he  is  here  introduced.  We  find  him  first  associated 
with  St  Paul  in  Acts  xx.  4,  where  "  Tychicus  and 
Trophimus"  represent  Asia  in  the  nurtiber  of  those 
who  accompanied  the  apostle  on  his  voyage  to  Jeru- 
salem, when  he  carried  the  contributions  of  his  Gentile 
Churches  to  the  relief  of  the  Christian  poor  in  Jerusalem. 
Trophimus,  his  companion,  is  called  a  '*  Greek  "  and  an 
"  Ephesian "  (Acts  xxi.  28,  29).  Whether  Tychicus 
belonged  to  the  same  city  or  not,  we  cannot  tell.  He 
was  almost  certainly  a  Greek.  The  Pastoral  epistles 
show  Tychicus  still  in  the  apostle's  service  in  his  last 
years.  He  appears  to  have  joined  St  Paul's  staff  and 
remained  with  him  from  the  time  that  he  accompanied 
him  to  Jerusalem  in  the  year  59.  From  2  Timothy  iv 
9-12  we  gather  that  Tychicus  was  sent  to  Ephesus 
to  relieve  Timothy,  when  St  Paul  desired  the  presence 
of  the  latter  at  Rome.  It  is  evident  that  he  was  a  man 
greatly  valued  by  the  apostle  and  endeared  to  him. 

Tychicus  was  well  known  in  the  Asian  Churches, 
and  suitable  therefore  to  be  sent  upon  this  errand. 
And  the  commendation  given  to  him  would  be  very 
welcome    to    the    circle    to  which    he    belonged.     The 

28 


434  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

apostle  has  great  tact  in  these  personal  matters,  the 
tact  which  belongs  to  delicate  feeling  and  a  generous 
mind.  He  calls  his  messenger  ''  the  beloved  brother  " 
in  his  relation  to  the  Church  in  general,  and  "faithful 
minister  in  the  Lord  "  in  his  special  relation  to  himself. 
So  he  describes  Epaphroditus  to  the  Philippians  as 
^^  your  apostle  and  minister  of  my  need."  In  convey- 
ing these  letters  and  messages,  this  worthy  man  was 
Paul's  apostle  and  minister  of  his  need  in  regard  to 
the  Asian  Churches.  He  is  a  "  minister  in  the  Lord" 
inasmuch  as  this  office  lies  within  the  range  of  his 
service  to  the  Lord  Christ. 

We  observe  that  in  writing  to  the  Colossians  the 
apostle  applies  to  Onesimus,  the  converted  slave,  the 
honourable  epithets  applied  here  to  this  long-tried 
friend:  "the  faithful  and  beloved  brother"  (Col.  iv.  9). 
Every  Christian  believer  should  be  in  the  eyes  of  his 
fellows  a  "  beloved  brother."  And  every  true  servant 
of  Christ  and  His  people  is  a  "  faithful  minister  in  the 
Lord,"  be  his  rank  high  or  low,  and  whether  official 
hands  have  been  laid  upon  his  head  or  not.  We  are 
apt,  by  a  trick  of  words,  to  limit  to  the  order  which 
we  suitably  call  "the  ministry"  expressions  that  the 
New  Testament  applies  to  the  common  ministry  of 
Christ's  saints  (comp.  iv.  12).  This  devoted  servant  of 
Christ  is  employed  just  now  as  a  newsman  and  letter- 
carrier.  But  what  a  high  responsibility  it  was,  to  be 
the  bearer  to  the  Asian  cities,  and  to  the  Church  for  all 
time,  of  the  epistles  of  Paul  the  apostle  to  the  Ephesians, 
Colossians  and  Philemon.  Had  Tychicus  been  careless 
or  dishonest,  had  he  lost  these  precious  documents  or 
tampered  with  them,  how  great  the  loss  to  mankind ! 
We  cannot  read  them  without  feeling  our  debt  to  this 
beloved  brother   and    faithful  servant   of  the  Church. 


vi.  23, 24.]  THE  BENEDICTION.  435 

Those  who  travel  upon  Christ's  business,  who  link 
distant  communities  to  each  other  and  convey  from  one 
to  another  the  Holy  Spirit's  fellowship  and  grace,  are 
"the  messengers  of  the  Churches  and  the  glory  of 
Christ "  (2  Cor.  viii.  23). 

The  Benediction. 

**  Peace  be  to  the  brethren,  and  love  with  faith, 

From  God  the  Father  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Grace  be  with  all  them  that  love  our  Lord  Jesu    Christ 

In  incorruption  "  (y\.  23,  24). 

Grace  and  Peace  were  the  first  words  of  the  epistle, 
—the  apostle's  salutation  to  all  his  Churches.  In 
Peace  and  Grace  he  breathes  out  his  final  blessing. 
The  benediction  is  fuller  than  in  -most  of  the  epistles, 
and  exhibits  several  peculiar  features. 

To  the  Thessalonians  (2  Ep.  iii.  16)  St  Paul  wished  : 
''  Peace  continually,  in  all  ways,  from  the  Lord  of  peace 
Himself"  ;  and  he  commends  the  Romans  twice  to 
'4he  God  of  peace"  (ch.  xv.  33,  xvi.  20):  the  Corin- 
thians he  bids  to  ''  live  in  peace,"  so  that  "  the  God  of 
love  and  peace"  may  be  with  them  (2  Cor.  xiii.  11). 
There  is  nothing  in  the  least  degree  strange  or  un- 
Pauline  in  the  wishes  here  expressed,  except  the  fact 
that  they  are  put  in  the  third  person — "Peace  to  the 
brethren;'  etc.— instead  of  being  addressed  directly  to 
the  readers  in  the  second  person,  as  in  all  other  of  the 
apostle's  extant  closing  benedictions.  This  peculiarity, 
as  we  observed  in  the  first  Chapter,  is  in  accordance 
with  the  encyclical  and  impersonal  stamp  of  the  epistle.* 
It  is  Paul's  most  catholic  benediction,  his  blessing  upon 
"all  the  Israel  of  God"  (comp.  Gal.  vi.  16). 

With    faith,"    that     "love"    is    desired    whereby, 

*  See  pp.  13-17. 


it 


436  THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE  EPHESIANS. 

according  to  the  Pauline  ethics  of  salvation,  faith  works 
(Gal.  V.  6),  the  love  which  as  a  vitalizing  organic  force 
creates  the  new  man,  formed  in  all  his  doings  and  dis- 
positions after  the  image  of  Jesus  Christ.  From  chapter 
iv.  1-3  we  have  learnt  how  "peace"  and  ^'love"  attend 
each  other.  Love  is  the  source  of  the  forbearance,  the 
mutual  consideration  and  self-sacrifice,  without  which 
there  is  no  peace  within  the  Church.  Peace  springs 
from  love :  love  waits  on  faith.  Amongst  brethren  in 
Christ,  members  of  the  same  household  of  faith,  peace 
and  love  have  their  home.  These  are  the  sons  of 
peace :  with  good  will  and  good  hope,  entering  or 
quitting  their  abode,  we  say,  "  Peace  be  to  this  house ! " 

The  peace  that  the  apostle  looks  for  amongst 
Christian  brethren  is  the  fruit  of  peace  with  God 
through  Christ.  Such  "peace  guarding  the  thoughts 
and  heart"  of  each  Christian  man,  nothing  contrary 
thereto  will  arise  amongst  them.  Calm  and  quiet 
hearts  make  a  peaceful  Church.  There  are  no  clashing 
interests,  no  selfish  competitions,  no  strife  as  to  who 
shall  be  greatest.  Differences  of  opinion  and  taste  are 
kept  within  the  bounds  of  mutual  submission.  The 
awe  of  God's  presence  with  His  people,  the  remem- 
brance of  the  dear  price  at  which  His  Church  was 
purchased,  the  sense  of  Christ's  Lordship  in  the  Spirit 
and  of  the  sacredness  of  our  brotherhood  in  Him, 
check  all  turbulence  and  rivalry  and  teach  us  to  seek 
the  things  that  make  for  peace. 

'^  Peace  and  lovej^  the  apostle  desires.  Love  includes 
peace,  and  more ;  for  it  labours  not  to  prevent  conten- 
tion only,  but  to  help  and  enrich  in  all  ways  the  body 
of  Christ.  By  such  ''toil  of  love"  faith  is  made 
complete.  We  are  bidden  indeed,  in  certain  matters, 
to  "  have  faith  to  ourselves  before  God  "  (Rom.  xiv.  22). 


vi.23,24.]  THE  BENEDICTIONr  437 


This  maxim  holds  where  one  has  a  special  faith  in 
regard  to  such  things  as  eating  flesh  or  drinking  wine, 
in  which  any  one  of  us  may  without  offence  differ  from 
his  brethren.  But  it  is  a  poor  faith  that  dwells  upon 
questions  of  this  nature,  and  makes  its  religion  of 
them.  The  essentials  of  faith,  as  we  saw  them 
delineated  in  chapter  iv.  1-6,  are  things  that  unite  and 
not  distinguish  us. 

As  faith  grows  and  deepens,  it  makes  new  channels 
in  which  love  may  flow.  ''  We  are  bound  to  thank 
God  always  for  you,"  writes  St  Paul  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians  (2  Ep.  i.  3),  "  for  that  your  faith  groweth  exceed- 
ingly, and  the  love  of  each  one  of  you  all  toward 
one  another  multiplieth."  This  is  the  sound  and  true 
growth  of  faith.  Where  an  intenser  faith  makes  men 
disputatious  and  exclusive ;  where  it  fails  to  breed 
meekness  and  courtesy,  we  cannot  but  suspect  its 
quality.  Such  faith  may  be  sincere  ;  but  it  is  mixed 
with  a  lamentable  ignorance,  and  a  resistance  to  the 
Holy  Spirit  that  is  likely  to  end  in  grave  offence. 
*^  Contending  earnestly  for  the  faith  "  does  not  mean 
contending  angrily,  with  the  weapons  of  satire  and  cen- 
soriousness.  It  is  well  to  remember  that  we  are  not 
the  judges  of  our  brethren.  There  are  many  questions 
raised  and  discussed  amongst  us,  which  we  may  safely 
leave  to  the  judgement  of  the  last  day.  It  is  too  easy 
to  fill  the  air  with  matters  of  contention,  and  to  excite 
a  sore  and  suspicious  temper  destructive  of  peace, 
and  in  which  nothing  but  fault-finding  will  flourish. 
If  we  must  contend,  we  may  surely  debate  quietly  on 
secondary  matters,  while  we  are  one  in  Christ.  If  we 
have  not  love  with  faith,  our  faith  is  worthless  (i  Cor. 
xiii.  2). 

Deep  beneath  the  peace  that  dwells  in  the  Church 


438  THE  EPISTLE   TO    THE  EPHESIANS.  . 

and  the  love  that  fills  each  believer's  heart,  is  the 
eternal  fountain  of  grace.  ''  Grace  be  with  all  those 
who  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ/'  says  the  apostle. 
Grace  is  theirs  already  ;  and  they  desire  nothing  so 
much  as  its  increase.  Their  love  to  Christ  is  the  fruit 
.of  the  grace  of  God  that  is  with  them.  This  wish 
includes  all  good  wishes  ;  it  surpasses  both  our  deserv- 
ings  and  desires.  All  that  God  prepared  for  us  in  His 
eternal  counsels,  and  that  Christ  purchased  by  His 
redeeming  love,  all  of  good  that  our  nature  can  receive 
now  and  for  ever,  is  embraced  in  this  one  word  :  Grace 
be  with  you. 

'*  With  all  them  that  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  Paul 
says ;  for  it  is  to  lovers  of  Christ  that  God  gives  the 
continuance  of  His  grace.  If  our  love  to  Christ  fails, 
grace  leaves  us.  God  cannot  look  with  favour  upon 
the  man  who  has  no  love  to  His  Son  Jesus  Christ.  In 
giving  his  blessing  to  the  Corinthians,  St  Paul  was  com- 
pelled to  write  with  his  own  hand  :  "  If  any  man  love 
not  the  Lord,  let  him  be  anathema."  The  blessing 
involves  the  anathema.  God's  love  is  not  a  love  of 
indifference,  an  indiscriminate,  immoral  affection.  It 
is  a  love  of  choice  and  predilection — ''  If  any  man 
love  me,"  said  Jesus,  "  my  Father  will  love  him."  Is 
not  the  condition  reasonable, — and  the  inference  inevit- 
able ?  The  Father  cannot  grant  His  grace  to  those  who 
have  seen  and  hated  Him  in  His  Son  and  image.  By 
that  hatred  they  refuse  His  grace,  and  cast  it  from  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  sincere  love  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  opens  the  heart  to  all  the  rich  and  purifying 
influences  of  Divine  grace.  The  sinful  woman,  stained 
with  false  and  foul  love,  who  washed  the  Saviour's  feet 
with  her  tears,  attained  in  that  act  to  a  height  of  purity 
undreamed  of  by  the  virtuous  Pharisee.     This  new  and 


vi.23, 24.]  THE  BENEDICTION.  439 

holy  flame  burns  out  impure  passion  from  the  soul : 
it  kindles  lofty  thoughts  ;  it  makes  crooked  natures 
straight,  and  timid  and  weak  natures  brave  and  strong. 
"  To  them  that  love  God,  we  know,  all  things  work 
together  for  good."  To  them  that  love  Christ,  all  things 
contribute  blessing  ;  all  conditions  and  events  of  life 
become  means  of  grace.  If  we  love  Christ,  we  shall 
love  His  people, — the  Church,  the  bride  of  Christ  from 
whom  He  will  never  be  parted  in  our  thoughts.  If  we 
love  Christ,  we  shall  love  the  work  He  has  laid  upon 
us,  and  the  word  He  has  taught  us,  and  the  sacramental 
pledges  He  has  given  us  in  remembrance  of  Him  and 
assurance  of  His  coming.  If  we  love  Him,  we  shall 
^'keep  His  commandments,"  and  He  will  keep  His 
promise  to  send  us  the  "  other  Helper,  to  be  with  us 
for  ever,  even  the  Spirit  of  truth."  The  gift  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  the  all-sufficiency  of  grace.*  Here  is 
the  innermost  sanctuary  of  our  religion,  the  fountain 
and  beginning  of  the  soul's  eternal  life, — in  the  love 
which  joins  it  to  the  Lord  in  one  spirit. 

In  incorruption  is  the  last  and  sealing  word  of  this 
letter,  which  we  have  been  so  long  studying  together. 
It  '*  stand's  as  the  crown  and  climax  of  this  glorious 
epistle  "  (Alford).  Like  so  many  other  words  of  the 
epistle,  at  first  sight  its  interpretation  is  not  clear.  The 
apostle  has  used  the  term  in  several  other  passages,  as 
synonymous  with  immortality  f  and  denoting  the  state 
of  the  blessed  after  the  resurrection,  when  they  will 
stand  before  God  complete  in  body  and  in  spirit,  with 
all  that  is  mortal  in  them  swallowed  up  of  life — '*  raised 
in  incorruption."     But  there  is  nothing  in  this  context 

*  Ch.  i.  14,  iv.  30.     See  Chapter  IV.,  above. 

t  Rom.  ii.  7  ;  i  Cor.  xv.  42,  50,  53,  54 ;  2  Tim.  i.  10.  See  Alford's 
excellent  note  on  this  passage. 


440  THE  EPISTLE    TO    THE  EPHESIANS. 

to  lead  up  to  the  idea  of  personal,  bodily  immortality. 
Those  who  construe  the  apostle's  words  in  this  sense, 
place  a  comma  before  the  final  clause  and  treat  it  as 
a  qualification  of  the  main  predicate  of  the  sentence ". 
''  Grace  be  with  all  them  that  love  our  Lord, — grace 
[culminating]  in  incorruption " — or  in  other  words, 
"  grace  crowned  with  glory  !  "  But  it  must  be  admitted 
that  this  is  somewhat  strained. 

The  rendering  of  our  ordinary  version,  "  in  sincerity  " 
(in  the  Revised  rendering,  "  uncorruptness  "),  gives  an 
ethical  sense  to  the  word  that  is  scarcely  borne  out  by 
usage.  It  is  a  different,  though  kindred  expression  that 
St  Paul  employs  to  express  ''  uncorruptness  "  in  Titus 
ii.  7.* 

It  appears  to  us  that  the  term  "  incorruption,"  in  its 
ordinary  significance,  applies  fitly  to  the  believer's  love 
for  the  Lord,  when  the  word  is  read  in  accordance  with 
the  symbolism  of  the  epistle.  This  love  is  the  life  of 
the  body  of  Christ.  In  it.  lies  the  Church's  immortaHty. 
The  gates  of  death  prevail  not  against  her,  rooted  and 
grounded  as  she  is  in  love  to  the  risen  and  immortal 
Christ.  "  May  that  love  be  maintained,"  the  apostle 
says,  '^  in  its  deathless  power.  Let  it  be  an  unspoilt 
and  unwasting  love." 

Oi  earthly  love  we  often  say  with  sadness  : — 

**  Space  is  against  thee  :  it  can  part ! 
Time  is  against  thee  :  it  can  chill !  " 

Not  SO  with  the  love  of  Christ.  Neither  death  nor  life 
parts  the  soul  from  Him.  Our  love  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  seats  us  with  Him  in  the  heavenly  places, — 
above  the  realm  of  decay,  above  this  wasting  flesh  and 
perishing  world. 

*  'A(pdopia  :  ci<pdapaia  is  deleted  in  the  critical  texts. 


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